Hearts and Soul Parts
by Sunfire Scribble
Summary: In the wake of war, one young witch and wizard are made into thieves for the cause, but they end up stealing more than they'd planned to.
1. Chapter 1

Note: This story is only compliant through book 6, after that, it's AU.

Chapter One:

The dreams had been an intermittent but disturbing companion for almost six years now. Even when the whole ordeal had been spinning viciously around her in her waking hours, they had twisted through her mind in the dark silence of her bed. Though she had been actually living it, she hadn't known the reality of her midnight ghosts at the time, had only had some vague inclination of what it all really meant. Not until her mind and magic had seeped back into her cold, stiff body as it lay on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets had she realized the identity of the specters, realized her vague, shapeless nightmares had been real.

For months after the close of her first year, she'd struggled with the nightly flood of memories previously suppressed by the magic of the diary. It had gotten easier over the years, if only because her sleeping thoughts had finally sorted through the majority of what had really happened. Still there were pieces she didn't quite understand, couldn't quite put into context. It was frustrating and more than a little disturbing, a little terrifying, that she might never know the full truth of her own life, her own actions.

It was equally disturbing, however, when different bits abruptly fell into place.

No matter how many times it happened, she still rocked back on her heels, still felt her gut plummet as realizations sank in at one point or another. She'd stopped dead just the night before as the voices of Gryffindor's Golden Trio had drifted out into the hallway. There had always been flashes that had fit nowhere, of course. Bits and pieces that she'd known somehow, didn't belong to her. But until she'd heard them whispering furiously about the research Hermione had apparently done to determine the identity and location of the missing Horcruxes, she hadn't understood to whom those flashes, those memories, had belonged. Until their discussion had reached her ears in the narrow hallway outside her brother's room, she hadn't fully grasped how much of Tom Riddle had remained in her head.

All that night, all the next day, she had tried to sort through the blurred edges of memory that she'd discovered in the recesses of her mind, memories that had once belonged in the mind of the young Dark Lord. Despite the inklings, the suspicions, she hadn't been able to truly acknowledge that particular explanation. It was a shock therefore, to know for sure that at least a lingering impression of the soul-part housed in the diary had leeched into her subconscious. It was even more disturbing to feel those vestiges drift forward in dreams and cling to waking thoughts. It was even worse, however, to look at herself and know that those drifting, clinging patches of cold darkness had been within her for over five years.

That thought triggered a feeling of self-hatred and regret almost as strong as what she had felt when she'd realized that she had been responsible for setting the Basilisk free. She'd struggled with that too, as the hours had ticked by, her mind switching back and forth between the frightening slideshow of fragmented revelations, and sickening fear. The mental acrobatics had kept her occupied and isolated for hours, and it was once more dark and quiet when she left her room and headed towards the kitchen to scrounge up some leftovers to quiet her rumbling stomach.

She hadn't even made it to the staircase before she was halted in her tracks. They were talking again, and though that thought made her want to quicken her steps for fear of a repeat of the night before, she couldn't quite make herself move past the pool of candlelight that spilled out from under Ron's door. It was shut, of course, and most likely locked, but as the room's three occupants were still technically underage, none of them had wanted to risk the ire of the Ministry, or Molly Weasley, by casting any spells to block their voices from penetrating the wood and reaching out into the silent hallway.

Because of that, Ginny barely had to strain to pick up the strands of their conversation as Harry recounted for his friends, the argument their former Headmaster had laid out for him the night the aged wizard had died. The bespectacled youth detailed the elder man's suspicions as to what the remaining Horcruxes might be. Hermione chimed in every few moments, adding the references she had found in regards to the history of Helga Hufflepuff's cup and her own interpretations and opinions as to its location.

_Wrong_. The word echoed between her ears as the whispered discussion continued. _That's not where it is_, she thought.

A vision of a long marble hallway framed on either side by tall glass cabinets flashed brightly through her mind. In the instant the foreign memory struck her, the small redhead had a vague recollection of smug satisfaction, and an image of a delicate, two-handled, gold cup. It sat innocently among a collection of cups and chalices, all of precious metal and all expertly carved and shaped and gleaming on one of the glass covered shelves. The picture in her head didn't show the badger etched into the cup, but she knew it was there. She remembered tracing the golden likeness with fingers that weren't hers before covering it with a spell and placing it on that shelf. She even remembered slipping unnoticed from the heavily warded hallway after depositing the treasure.

The youngest Weasley reached out blindly, steadying herself by placing a suddenly shaking hand on the wall. She remembered a strong sense of pride, a feeling of utter superiority while watching droves of witches and wizards stroll along, admiring the glass shelves and the ancient treasures they housed. The masses never knew exactly what they were looking at, but she remembered knowing, remembered taking a perverse sense of pleasure from the way group after group fawned over the cleverly disguised treasure sitting innocently before them.

Ginny shook her head, forcing the thoughts and images from her mind. They refused to fully retreat, however, lingering instead in the corner of her awareness as the Trio kept talking, making plans for their secret departure and the hunts that would follow.

_Wrong. They're going to the wrong place, all the wrong places_, she said to herself as they planned it all out, mere feet from her.

A growing sense of unease settled around the redhead. Her brother and his friends didn't know what they were doing, couldn't know how to find the objects they sought. She considered for a moment, telling them what she knew, offering to help them in their search. The idea was discarded almost as soon as it formed. If they even believed her in the first place, there was no way they would let her help. Harry had already shown that he felt her incapable of dealing with the fight ahead, and she knew her brother would be just as compelled to smother and over-protect her. Yet without her help, without heeding her advice, they would undoubtedly land themselves in big trouble.

The word _trap_ slithered through her mind, and she leaned more heavily on the wall as her free hand rose to hold her head. Regaining memories she herself had never really possessed to start with was never pleasant, but when they returned so quickly, one after another, it was nearly painful. It was certainly overwhelming.

So many pictures and sensations; so much knowledge and information. None of it was hers, yet it was in her head, forcing its way into her brain whether there was room or not. At this exact moment, however, the pain and discomfort wasn't as much of a concern as the content of her most recent recollections. For all that the flood was sending waves of pain and nausea crashing through her, Ginny knew the things she had just remembered could lead the Order to one of the remaining remnants of Voldemort's black soul. It could also prevent the Trio from following a carefully laid trail that would only lead to their deaths.

For all her books and cleverness, Hermione could not grasp the twists of the Dark Lord's venomous mind. But Ginny could, and she knew, even without the rest of the fragmented memory that had warned her, that Voldemort had planned for a contingency such as Hermione's research. The Order knew that the Dark wizard had thought quite a ways ahead when he'd split his soul into pieces, but no one else truly realized how far ahead he'd planned. No one else had thought about the fact that most any information they garnered from books and spells would have also been available to a young Tom Riddle, and would have been taken into account when he'd chosen his Horcruxes and their hiding places.

With the experiences of her first year still shadowing her thoughts, however, she had an advantage over everyone else. And she fully intended to utilize it. She could, and would, prevent the would-be seventh-years from falling into Voldemort's traps. Even if Ron, Harry, and Hermione wouldn't take her word over the other girl's research, there were other ways to keep them from following their foolish plans. Telling her mother that the three were going to sneak away after the wedding would keep them at the Burrow for a short while longer.

But even wards perfected over years of dealing with Fred and George would only hold those three for so long. She needed someone that could hold the infamous Trio indefinitely. There was only one person still alive that might be able to manage that.

Moody.

Swallowing past the nausea in her throat, the witch returned to her room just long enough to pull on shoes and a worn black robe that would fade easily into the shadows. Once having accomplished that, she slipped quietly from the warmth of her childhood home. A quick silencing charm aimed at her feet left her racing soundlessly across the fields surrounding the Burrow, until she deemed herself far enough from the house to risk the noise of the Knight Bus's arrival.

After that, it was merely a matter of holding out her wand hand, and giving Stan Shunpike's replacement a destination far enough from Grimmauld Place that her going there wouldn't leave any clues as to her destination. She was left with a longer trek than she would have otherwise wanted, especially after the jarring ride, but she managed her journey in a decent amount of time. The sun had yet to make it over the horizon when she found herself standing in the foyer of the old Black home.

She was grateful for the cover of shadow, and the light of predawn that allowed her to make her way through the house unnoticed by even Mrs. Black's portrait. The headquarters were by no means deserted, but the half-light of early morning helped hide her, and the tricks she had eventually remembered learning from Tom her first year, led the young witch to her destination undisturbed. She stood silently in the hall for a moment, gathering her vaulted Gryffindor bravery before stepping forward and casting a little-known variation of _Alohomora_.

She felt a brief pang of guilt at breaking in, absently asking herself why she didn't just knock, but paid the question little heed, listening instead to the strange sixth-sense she'd seemed to have acquired during her first year at Hogwarts. For all that she trusted the acting head of the Order, she had a feeling that she needed to get into his room right then, without him knowing, if she wanted to stand a chance of having him listen to what she had to say.

She did exactly that, swishing and flicking in the wordless manner that she'd seen herself doing in dreams, slipping silently through the door once the wards had dropped. A lubricating charm kept the hinges from screeching as she shut the door behind her, and _Restituo Incantatem_ replaced the wards, leaving everything just as it had been upon her arrival. So it was that she made it all the way to the adjoining room before Moody's eye swiveled in its socked and spotted her slinking unnoticed into his lair.

She made no sound when he spun to face her, however. She didn't so much as jump at the wand he was suddenly brandishing in her direction. All Ginny Weasley's attention was riveted on the room's third occupant as he sat in the large, overstuffed chair by the fireplace, his shriveled and blackened hand resting motionless in the lap of his florescent robes.

End Chapter One

Author's Notes: Restituo, according to online Latin dictionaries, means: restore, put back, replace. Restituo Incantatem is meant to replace previous spells or wards


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

He found great pleasure in knowing things, especially things he wasn't supposed to, things that no one else thought he knew. Knowledge was a form of power, after all, and what Slytherin didn't want that, didn't relish possessing it? Certainly not him. He wanted it, had it, relished it, and when the time was right, he used it. When it came to the piece of information he was absolutely not supposed to have, the thing no one suspected him of knowing, the time to make use of his knowledge had come at the beginning of his sixth year at Hogwarts.

He'd very much enjoyed confronting them with what he had known, had relished their surprise, and their anger. Well, only one of them had been angry, but it had still been rather satisfying to watch the emotion fill their faces. They hadn't seen it coming, had thought that they had hid it so well, their true motives, their true allegiance, their true goal. But he had seen it, had known that they were planning something big, that they were going to do something important, something worthy of his involvement. So he'd cornered his Head of House one night, told the professor that he knew what was going on and that he wanted in on it. The elder wizard had taken him to his accomplice immediately, and after a dose of Veritaserum and several rounds of questions, Draco Malfoy had been given some of the most valuable information in the Wizarding world: the plans for Albus Dumbledore's apparent execution.

From there it had been relatively easy to ensure the plan's success, though keeping everyone else unaware of his intentions had been more tedious than he would have liked. All the time he had to spend in the Room of Requirement did do wonders for his grades, though, and with the added bonus of making it appear as though he were doing it without studying. All in all, the year had gone quite well for him, leaving everyone in his life with the impression that he was the perfectly intelligent and devoted son, Slytherin, and assassin-to-be. That is, until the end of the year, when it had all come to fruition and his life had gone to hell.

Sure, the plan had gone off with only a few hitches, its execution leaving them with the results they had needed, but the collateral damage had been significant. As necessary as it had been to ensure they had the appropriate audience, and the right escort, he'd still had to get the Death Eaters into the school without the warning that would have protected the students and ruined their plan.

While it had given the Potions master the perfect opportunity to step in and regain face before the Dark Lord, he'd still had to pretend to be a cowardly would-be-murderer. Though the man would have died anyway for breaking his Vow, he'd had to stand by and watch his Head of House be killed while in the guise of the Headmaster. And despite the fact that it was the only way he would get through it all in one piece, he'd had to let Albus Dumbledore, Polyjuiced to resemble Severus Snape, cast what appeared to be the Killing Curse on the Malfoy heir once they had returned to Voldemort's hideout in punishment for his failure on the tower.

Draco didn't like knowing that everyone thought him an incompetent coward; he didn't like knowing all but Dumbledore and Moody thought him dead. But he enjoyed knowing that their plan had worked, and that for the two weeks the aged wizard had kept up the charade, he'd been able to gather much useful information from the Death Eaters and Dark Lord that thought him the triumphant and loyal murderer of Albus Dumbledore. He enjoyed knowing that he had provided invaluable aid in an important and secret endeavor that had left the half-blooded snake with a false, and dangerous, sense of security.

What he did not enjoy was where his involvement in the plan had left him. No matter how many times the Headmaster had told him it was the safest place for him to be, it did not change the fact the Draco Malfoy was, for all intents and purposes, stuck in the Muggle world.

He'd dealt with it at first by telling himself that it was only temporary, that he would only be there until Dumbledore revealed himself and could assure the Order that Draco was on their side and could therefore be hidden with them. But he knew that the old wizard wouldn't risk anyone finding out that he was alive until it could help the Order strategically. If Voldemort were to discover the truth, not only would it rob them of the element of surprise, it would put the Dark Lord on the defensive and make him twice as careful and suspicious. Even knowing that, however, it took the blond nearly a month to accept that he would be stuck where he was for an indefinite length of time.

Such acceptance was not an easy thing for the Malfoy heir. For the first week, he spent all his time and energy hating the Headmaster for leaving him with a family of Muggles, even if the Tonks were technically related to his aunt's husband and so, through marriage, to his mother and himself. Then as he thought more of the cause for which he had given up so much, he began to hate his situation for keeping him from the figurative front lines where he could actually accomplish something worthy of his time. The money that Snape had funneled from his ancestral vault into an account for him before he'd died mollified him somewhat, however, and after several days, he shifted his resentment onto his parents.

The pressure and expectations the Malfoys had heaped upon him for most of his life weighed heavily on him even two and a half weeks after being freed from them and the life of servitude and hypocrisy that they would have trapped him into. Eventually that faded as the hours and days ticked by in the small room he had been allotted in the Tonks' home, and he was able to work past his familial animosity. Upon doing so, he refocused his frustration and anger on a much more deserving target that could undoubtedly sustain his hate: Voldemort.

Targeting the Dark Lord served as more than just an outlet for his negative emotions, it also provided him with the incentive he needed to leave the confines of his new room, and begin to consider venturing out into the Muggle world itself. It was hardly befitting a Malfoy, or a Slytherin to cower in his room, after all, and even if it meant adapting to Muggle life, snakes were survivors. He would survive this trial, for however long the Headmaster left him stranded there. It was not a matter of lowering himself to Muggle existence, but rather a matter of a Malfoy rising to the challenge of his own survival in trying circumstances.

And he would rise to that challenge, he would not be beaten by so small an obstacle as simple Muggle elec-trisy or whatever the hell it was. He wouldn't. No matter how many hours it took him to understand how the bloody hell to make himself a meal in that uh-vin contraption. The more difficult it was to get a grasp on Muggle technology and culture, the more determined he became to master it, to carve out a suitably comfortable life for himself.

He devoted all his time to the task for over two weeks, attacking the problem as he would any particularly challenging spell or potion. He spent hours combing books on everything from cooking to car repair, reading sports and teen magazines, watching documentaries and sit-coms - once he figured out how to use the telly, that was - anything and everything he could find that would give him an advantage.

When he wasn't reading, watching TV, or listening to the music and news programs on the radio, he was grilling Garald and Coral Tonks on the strange customs and practices his research was describing. He spent hours watching his keepers use different appliances and bits of technology, often having them explain their actions in detail before replicating it himself. The computer was by far the most difficult thing for him to learn, but his prideful determination allowed him to become fairly competent after only two days and one sleepless night.

All the time and effort he put into his study of, and acclimation to, Muggle life felt nearly too much as his enthusiasm began to wane after a few weeks; but Garald's hearty affirmations and Coral's cheerful approval left him feeling strangely proud. Now a certain cold pride had always accompanied him as a Malfoy, but the pride he felt when the Tonks expressed their happiness with his progress was a simpler, warmer pride that he had been previously unfamiliar with. Now that he had made its acquaintance, however, he found himself more than a little eager to earn more of it.

That eagerness made the blond all the more frustrated by his own apparent inability to venture out into the world he had prepared himself so painstakingly to enter. The first day after he had proclaimed himself proficient enough in Muggle to leave the house, he simply wanted to rest up from his vigorous training and studying. The second he thought he should review things one more time. The third it was a little too windy to make an outing pleasant. The fourth he had a headache.

By the fifth day he was out of readily available excuses and was forced to admit that it was more than his unfamiliarity with Muggles that made him reluctant to go amongst them. He was, in all actuality, the slightest bit afraid of the world that lay outside the Tonks' door. He was used to being comfortable, sure of himself, sure of how he would be received as a Malfoy and confident of his ability to react should he not be welcomed. Here, however, he was not. For all his preparations, he was not comfortable utilizing his new knowledge, he knew no one, and he had no course available should he encounter any unforeseen circumstances. And being both a Malfoy and a Slytherin he was cautious and suspicious enough to come up with several scenarios that would require him to need options that would be beyond him without the use of his wand, which he could not do for fear of revealing himself.

The admission left him with more than enough reason to go, if only to prove that he could. So on day six, he left the Tonks' home and walked the ten minutes to the small clothing store Coral had told him about. Once there, Draco had relaxed somewhat as the employee waited on him respectfully, and cheered a bit when he was able to find a new set of trousers and a comfortable yet stylish jumper to augment his wardrobe. The fact that he was able to count out the required amount to pay for the purchase bolstered his confidence enough to convince him to continue his excursion at a nearby sandwich shop.

The sense of near normalcy that surrounded the small restaurant eased the blond's nerves to the point where he lingered over his sandwich and simply watched the Muggles around him go about their day. He listened with half an ear to the spirited debate that consumed two middle-aged men as to the merits of their favorite football teams, and the cheerful conversation of a group of young women, which seemed to center around the picture that had been released the day before at a local cinema.

The pitch of the women's voices began to grate on his ears after a while, but the topic gave him the urge to see exactly what they were prattling on about. Which is how, after once more handling the Muggle currency correctly, and even managing to determine the appropriate tip, Draco Malfoy found himself ensconced in a dark theater, waiting rather anxiously for the film to start. He was not disappointed. Although the two kids sitting several rows over made an annoying number of poorly hushed comments to one another, and his feet discovered a tendency to stick to the floor, he quite enjoyed himself. He liked the lack of commercials he had become accustomed to on the television, and the size of the screen and quality of the sound greatly enhanced the experience. As for the movie itself, it lived up to the appraisal he had overheard.

But of everything, it was one of the previews for another movie that had him thinking rather furiously that night after returning to the Tonks' residence. All nerves and discomfort that might have otherwise lingered from his first foray into the Muggle world were in the back of his mind as he played the scene over and over in his mind. He couldn't remember the name of the actor that had been announced, or the movie title that had been advertised, but he couldn't forget the proclamation that had accompanied that scene.

'One of the best martial arts films of the decade,' it had said. Martial arts. It wasn't dueling, but it may just be the Muggle equivalent, which would have to be enough, because while he may have been wandless, he'd be damned if he allowed himself to be defenseless.

Not that he was scared, or anything.

End Chapter Two


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Ginny Weasley had an instant for fear to sweep over her at the sight, an instant to fight the panic at the thought that she had somehow drowned once more in foreign memories. The moment passed quickly, however, leaving her shaky and nauseous with relief and not a small amount of confusion. She was a mere observer amongst the remnants of the young Dark Lord, after all; his recollections never reacted to her presence as the two in the room were so obviously doing. Moody had reacted so quickly, in fact, that it took a noticeable effort for the grizzled man to pull up his wand before he automatically cursed his intruder.

The other aged wizard reacted with little more than a surprised widening of his eyes as he took in the petite redhead's panic-frozen form.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing in here, girl?"

Ginny was jolted back to herself at the booming demand, the young witch fighting the instinct to step back as the full force of Mad Eye Moody's agitated suspicion landed unerringly on her. She'd always been intimidated by the former Auror, even after learning that the one she had known her third year had actually been an imposter, and so she was rather unsure how it was that she managed to hold her ground when he grasped her arms rather roughly.

"How'd you get here? Who sent you?"

Before she began to stutter an answer through rapidly building nerves, a calm voice broke through Moody's harsh shouts. "Now, now, Alastor, give the child some space. There's no need to scare her, she will be more than willing to answer any questions we may have, isn't that correct, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny nodded stiffly, taking a moment to regain her breath and shift ever-so-slightly away from the scowling wizard. Neither man missed her action, nor the fact that she deliberately but subtly rolled her shoulders and loosened her grip on her wand as she lowered it to her side in a move that seemed outwardly relaxed, but in truth left her in the perfect position to raise her wand in the most efficient and accurate way possible. The observation left the wizards impressed and wary in equal measure.

Any questions that may have been aimed at her were forestalled, however, by the deafeningly silent question burning in the witch's brown eyes as they fixed on the wizard still seated before the fire. "You're alive."

The statement was unnecessary in its repetition of the obvious, but was something she hadn't been able to keep to herself, almost needing to put it into words in order to process the jarring information. Blue eyes, lacking a noticeable amount of their usual sparkle, simply stared back at her, no response coming from either wizard as her words echoed in the small sitting room. In the silence, her gaze narrowed, sharpening as the thoughts raced and spun in her mind. The shocking facts scattered previous assumptions, merged with devious insight that had been surfacing within her over the last months, and left her with a cold but logical assessment.

"You tricked him. You fooled everyone in order to trick him into thinking you were dead."

Both wizards regarded her with hidden speculation, both forming and reforming opinions as the youngest Weasley seized their intentions without hesitation.

"No one saw it, no one doubted, which means at least the body was real, so someone died. Someone that looked like you. Polyjuice only lasts an hour because it has to fight against the cells' natural arrangement. An expert Potions master may be able to lengthen the effects, but not more than a couple hours. Once someone dies, however, the cells stop reproducing, stop fighting the potion, so it wouldn't wear off at all. So someone else is buried with your face, someone who hasn't been missed in the last two months."

Brown and blue locked, the former brightening with realization, the latter dulled with regret even as the gaze swept over her with consideration. "Yes, Miss Weasley, that is precisely correct."

More questions piled up almost visibly in her eyes, but neither said another word, the silence stretching almost painfully between them until it was broken as the third occupant of the small room finally reached the end of his patience.

"You figured that out pretty quick there for a fifth-year witch. Too quick if you ask me."

Only the former Headmaster's warning glance kept the veteran from taking hold of her once more. But even Dumbledore couldn't keep his magical eye from spinning a full circuit around the room and switching modes as it zeroed in on the witch, checking for all manner of spells and potions and magical deceits. Finding no evidence that the young redhead was anyone but Ginny Weasley, however, he grudgingly backed down and let the older wizard question her.

"That was a rather remarkable display of deduction, Miss Weasley. I must say I am almost as impressed with it as I was with the surprising ease with which you slipped out of your house and infiltrated both the Headquarters and these rooms without even Alastor or myself becoming aware of your presence until you were upon us. I would be most interested in how you managed such a feat."

Memories both her own, and not, flickered at the edge of her thoughts. Her, reading from the diary, practicing the spells that appeared on the worn pages, Tom's encouragement forming on the parchment before her. Her, using those spells, and others, going through the unfamiliar motions without conscious thought or control as she crept through the castle's dark corridors.

She pushed it all further into her mind, forcing herself to remain focused on the equally distressing knowledge that had led her there that night. The same fear and urgency that had sped her flight only an hour before surged through her once more. "I'll explain what I can, but first, you have to stop them. Hermione thinks she's found them, but it's a trap and they're going to go, they're going to get themselves killed, and they won't listen to me, and mum couldn't hold them if she tried. You have to do something," she urged, her words tumbling out rather unsteadily.

Dumbledore rose for the first time, placing his good hand on her shoulder and steering her gently to a nearby chair. "From the beginning if you would, Miss Weasley."

Ginny took a deep breath as the two wizards took seats across from her, tried to steady her nerves enough to speak calmly. "Hermione's been researching, trying to find the rest of the Horcruxes."

Moody's eye narrowed at her last word, but remained silent as she continued. "She thinks she's figured out what they are, where they are, and she and Ron and Harry are planning to go find them after Bill's wedding. But she's wrong, he knew someone would look where she did, use the same books. He planned for it, he left a trap, and they're going to walk right into it. They're going to die if you don't stop them."

An edge of panic seeped into her words as she tried to explain the urgency of the matter to the only two people who could help her. Her nerves were scraping themselves raw and she couldn't keep herself from jumping in her seat when the former Auror leaned towards her with a suspicious glare.

"How do you know what Voldemort knew, what he planned? What aren't you telling us, girl?" The harsh words sent her pulse racing and her eyes falling to her hands as she fisted them around the wand she had never put away.

She managed a shuddering breath, forcing herself to say it before Moody followed through with the obvious urge to leap across the distance between them and force the answer from her.

"I see it." She felt her skin grow cold and her stomach roll as it always did when she thought about what was happening to her. "Bits and pieces. Flashes. Memories."

Ginny took another breath, tried to still the tremors making her hands shake in her lap. "At first it was just dreams. About my first year."

She chanced a quick look at the former Headmaster but couldn't keep her eyes on him when she saw him looking directly at her. "Then it was about other stuff, stuff I never did, places I've never been, spells I have never cast before, but know exactly how to use. I remember what happened, but they aren't my memories." This time she was able to maintain eye contact, her gaze pleading.

"It's started happening when I'm awake now. I'll hear something, or see something, and it'll remind me of stuff, but it's stuff I didn't know before. I- I think it's stuff he knew, memories he left in the diary that got in me, in my head."

She refused to look anywhere but into those sharp blue eyes as they stared at her, assessed her. She half expected Moody to tackle her from the chair, to accuse her of being under some kind of spell, a tool of the Dark Lord. But the paranoid wizard simply stared, at her, at Dumbledore, and thought. And planned.

End Chapter Three


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

"Well, I do believe we have a rather unexpected situation on our hands," Albus Dumbledore stated as he considered the young witch sitting in the other room.

Alastor 'Mad Eye' Moody gave a grunt in response. "She's got bits of Voldemort in her head, Albus, I think that's more than an unexpected situation."

"Hmm," the elder wizard noted with a nod of his head. "Yes, quite. We must determine our course of action."

"Determine?" Moody reared back as if he'd caught a whiff of something rather repugnant. "It's obvious what we have to do. That chit could know things; remember things that may well win this war. We have access to Voldemort's memories, how can we do anything but use them against the bloody bastard? She's already shown that she can use whatever's in her head. I had three layers of wards and alerts on the door to these rooms, and she slipped right in. That little girl is our best shot at being prepared for what's coming, we have to make use of that, make use of her."

"I hardly see the use of a child an easy decision to make, Alastor."

"Not an easy one, Albus, but even you have to admit it's a necessary one. The whole of the Wizarding world is at stake here. She is one in thousands, just as others have been."

Regret and resignation shone in his tired eyes as he thought of a young man whose knowledge he had utilized, whose life he had put in jeopardy so many years before; whose life he had eventually taken with his own wand. He thought of another young man he'd made use of, whose life he had cut off, who he had stashed away like a valuable trinket. Yes, such concessions were necessary in war, but they were never taken lightly, or without significant pains.

"I will handle things with Miss Weasley, Alastor. For now I need you to ready the school for the children. Things will have to be moved along a little earlier than planned. I do not know for certain how reliable these memories may be, but what I know of the magic employed to create that diary; this is too possible a result to ignore, though I had never before considered it."

The former Auror spared him a glare and a grunt as he stomped through the sitting room, lumbered past his unexpected guest, and to his door. He disengaged his wards with a stiff swipe of his wand and a harsh muttering, then closed the door behind him and repeated the process on the other side.

Ginny watched his angry movements with trepidation, turning almost fearfully to face her former Headmaster as he appeared in the doorway and gestured her back into the sitting room and the chair she had previously occupied.

"Harry, Ron and Hermione, sir? Are-"

"They'll be taken to Hogwarts and kept there until the wedding, then taken back directly after the ceremony. They'll have an escort at all times and be kept busy studying with various professors and Aurors to ready for the role Harry can not be protected from; they won't be able to run off, I assure you."

She gave a jerky nod, swallowed. "And me? What are- what will-?"

His healthy hand rested on her fluttering ones, stilling their movements and reminding her that she still had yet to put away her wand. With a sheepish hesitancy, she slipped the length of birch into her sleeve and tried to remain calm as she voiced one of her largest concerns.

"Will I be locked away too, Professor?"

He didn't bother contradicting her description of the trio's confinement. "Are you planning to go off on a mission of your own?"

She shook her head, red strands dancing in front of her face, which was turned down and nearly hidden from view.

"Then why would you need to be protected within the school?"

"Because I know, sir. I'm the only one that knows you're alive, and that makes me a threat."

The aged wizard sighed at her words, which were as telling as her deduction and infiltration had been, of the harsh logic she understood so well. He wondered how much of it she would have known without whatever remnants of Tom Riddle had remained within her. He wondered how much she knew now, and how he would make use of it to save lives. He hated himself for doing so even as that wartime logic she displayed told him that that was exactly what he would have to do.

"I have hope that tonight's revelations will help our cause more than hinder it." He knew he needed to explain more fully what he and the Order would need from her, but he found it difficult to tell yet another child that they would be his tool. The lingering mark of a far less considerate mind made it unnecessary.

"You hope to use my- his memories. Use him against himself."

"It would seem," the former Headmaster said with a unhappy smile, "that you have retained more than mere bits of Tom's memories, dear, if you understand so well the demands of war."

"It's not so much his memories, sir, as it is mine. I've gone over everything he ever wrote to me, dissected it all, and have eventually been able to see more than his words. I know now, what he'd been doing, the intentions behind his manipulation, and I've done my best to understand them, if only from his point of view."

Ginny refused to look at him as she continued, hating the truth behind her words and the weakness they revealed. "I think at first I was trying to find an excuse, some reasoning that proved he really was my friend after all, that he didn't want to hurt me, but he had to."

"Such cruelty as Tom was capable of, is hard to understand at any age, let alone eleven."

She nodded, but said nothing, just let the silence stretch and fill with the knowledge that neither one of them could say anything that would have any real effect on the old wound. After several minutes, however, the youngest Weasley broke the heavy silence.

"Most everything has been scraps, things that don't seem to fit anywhere in particular. Even when I heard them talking about what they thought the Horcruxes were and where they thought they were hidden, I just got this feeling that it was wrong, that they were wrong." The redhead started to gain speed with every word, talking faster and faster in an attempt to get it all out before the fear and worry that had been coursing through her had a chance to take hold. "I kind of half remember the books Hermione was talking about, remember reading them and thinking that they'd lead people away, and the word 'trap' popped into my head and I just knew that if they went where they were planning that they wouldn't come back."

The last few words came out on a sob and she had to force herself to take a breath before she could say anything more. Dumbledore didn't press her, didn't ask her any questions, just sat and waited for her to go on.

"The only other thing that's remotely clear is the cup."

Blue eyes sharpened at her words, the elderly wizard looking as young and determined as he had at the Welcoming Feast her first year. He didn't have to prod her, though, she'd made the connection the first time she'd seen it in her head.

"I overheard Harry and the others discussing it, how you told him you thought Helga Hufflepuff's cup might be one of the Horcruxes, and I saw it. It looked like just a plain gold cup and it was sitting next to a bunch of similar pieces, on a glass shelf in a long hallway, but I know it's the cup. I remember covering the badger that was carved underneath, using a spell to disguise it before putting it on the shelf with the others. I mean, I remember him doing it."

Ginny shook her head, bringing her hands up to rub at her temples. "I can't- sometimes I'm not sure whose thoughts I'm thinking, who else is in my head."

Albus knelt stiffly in front of her, and placed his good hand on her knee. "I imagine this is very confusing for you, Miss Weasley, but I assure you, there is no one else in your mind any longer. It seems the link forged between yourself and the piece of Tom that was in the diary was not entirely severed when it was destroyed. Some piece of that connection routed too deeply in your subconscious, but it is no longer active. Not even the ghost of Tom is truly connected to you now, though shadows of it remain. He cannot touch you, my dear, but by telling us what his shadows illuminate in your mind, you can help us fight him."

She nodded, forcing herself to take deep breaths, to think past how she knew, and simply focus on what she knew. "I know, and I want to help, I do."

"All right then dear. Think, what else do you remember about the hallway?"

"I'm not sure. I remember there were a lot of wards, on the hallway and the cabinet. I remember there were a lot of other shelves around, cabinets of them, all glass, all covered with stuff, mostly made of gold and silver, and bone or ivory, maybe, but there was a lot, all nicely arranged. And I remember watching people, lots of wizards and witches walking down the hallway, looking at everything, and thinking how they were right to look at the cup like it was special, because it was special, because it was me. Him."

Dumbledore nodded at her words, sat for a moment, considering. "Lots of shelves, on display, you say? Perhaps similar to what you would find at a museum?"

She saw a flash, more hallways, just like the first one, all long and grand, and gleaming, all leading to a large room. It was made of white marble, from the floor to the ceiling, and supported by half a dozen towering pillars carved to resemble the columns of the Parthenon. There was an entrance on the far end of the room, on the other side of a counter topped with polished grey granite. Above two huge double doors there hung a sign.

"Yesterday's Everyday Wizardry."

"Pardon?"

"There was a sign, above the main entrance of the building, it said Yesterday's Everyday Wizardry."

"Hmm. I'm afraid I don't know of any establishment in London called that. But it could refer to something that was going on at the time, a fair or, if it is indeed a museum, it could be the title of an exhibition.

"So there's no way of knowing where it is?"

He shook his head and for the first time that evening, a slight sparkle gleamed from his eyes. "I have a good idea of when he procured the cup, and a good deal of the proper research can turn up a great many things."

Ginny nodded, met his gaze, and started to smile. "Mum is determined that I go to school next month since Professor McGonagall is keeping it open, and Hogwarts does have the best library."

"It does indeed, and in the meantime, I believe my personal collection will suffice." They shared a smile, though the expression held more determination than cheer. "Let's get started, shall we?"

End Chapter Four


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

It wasn't like anything he'd ever done. The movements utilized muscles he hadn't been aware he'd possessed, even with all the hours he'd put in training for, and playing, Quidditch. His experience with the most noble of sports did, however, serve him in good stead insofar as his balance and agility were concerned. Still, the first week or two had found him on the floor more often than not. Such failure was not acceptable for a Malfoy, even considering how completely foreign the mere concept of physical combat happened to be. He'd held his own on the pitch, after all, and Quidditch was a very physical sport, especially when one is involved in a Slytherin/Gryffindor match.

With such a view, and a large amount of stubborn Malfoy pride, Draco soon developed an impressive aptitude for Muggle martial arts. And somewhere during the long painful hours of practice and training, he'd discovered he rather enjoyed it. He enjoyed it so much, and was so pleased with his progress, in fact, that he expanded beyond Aikido. He chose to move on to Tae Kwon Do because of its emphasis on stand-up fighting. He quickly immersed himself in the exchange of punches and blocks, the increasingly complicated footwork and kicks.

He was praised more than once on the speed with which he picked up the techniques and the dedication he showed to his studies, but more than anything, the thing that made him keep going was the raw rush he got when he fought, hand to hand and face to face. It was so much more intimate and intense than dueling, so much more satisfying when you sent the other person to the floor with your own strength, felt the other person's flesh against your fist.

In the months he had been taking Muggle martial arts classes, he'd found a new sense of pride in his own abilities and strength that he doubted even the House Cup would have given him. Watching the majority of the game from above and only getting to actually play for the duration of the chase to the Snitch just didn't compare to taking, blocking, and giving every punch and kick that could be pulled from screaming muscles. At least that's what he would think to himself after a sparing session; he didn't think much at all beyond the next blow, the next block, when he was fighting.

Draco Malfoy spared none of his senses for anything besides his opponent as he ducked to evade a well-aimed kick, and raised an arm to keep a large fist from connecting with his face, then jabbed with his own hand, struck out with his own foot and felt the shots connect solidly with their targets.

"All right, well done, gentlemen."

The young wizard pulled the fist he'd been prepared to send towards the other man's face, straightened and helped his opponent to his feet before stepping back and bowing, then turning to face the older man that had just called a stop to the practice bout.

"Wonderful work today. Draco, your footwork is coming along superbly. We'll go over those new steps tomorrow."

The blond nodded respectfully, keeping his face carefully composed while he said goodbye and headed towards the showers to clean up. By the time he had reached his destination, he was having trouble holding on to the solemnity though; an expression of pure enjoyment stealing over his features as he stepped up to his locker and reached for his clean clothes.

"Having fun, eh?"

He turned at the question, raising a single blond brow at the grinning brunette behind him. The gesture seemed to cause the stranger a great deal of amusement. The as-yet unknown young man let out a loud laugh and looked behind him at a sandy-blond haired teenager that looked about their age.

"Hey, Blake, he does the snobby brow-thing even better than you."

The individual in question, the sandy-blond, smirked at the Slytherin as though he were a snake himself. Draco smirked back in similar, though perhaps cockier, fashion, locking eyes with the semi-blond as a third stranger made his way into the locker room.

"Bloody hell, there's two of 'em," he exclaimed upon catching sight of the two, drawing the others' attention to him.

The ice-blond broke eye contact and glanced over, brow once more rising in question as he watched the three.

"They do have a certain quality in common, don't they?" the brunette asked, gesturing between blonds.

"Yeah," the third one stated, running a hand absently over what little there was of his hair. "They both look like arrogant snobs."

Rather than appear offended by the description, the young wizard gave an elegant shrug in agreement and leaned back against his locker. The action brought another round of laughter from the brunette. The other two soon joined in, eventually pulling an amused smirk from their silent audience. Noticing his reaction, the three teenagers exchanged looks for a moment before the brunette took a step forward and held out his hand.

"I'm Aaron," he stated as he shook Draco's hand, then waved with friendly dismal at the two standing behind him. "The blond's Blake, and the other one's Karen."

The last introduction earned Aaron a glare from his friend with the severe crew cut. "It's Carren, Car-ren. Arse." The dark-haired teen rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"I'm Draco," he said before taking Blake's hand.

"Nice ta meet cha, Draco," Aaron responded. He waited a beat for Carren to shake his hand, then gestured at the standard white uniform that the blond had been about to change out of when they had come in. "How long ya been doin' Tae Kwon Do?"

"Little over a month is all, I was doing Aikido for about as long before I started here."

"A month? Damn, you must learn quick."

Draco smirked at the compliment, but didn't bother to respond. "What about you?"

"Oh, we've been taking different classes on and off since we were kids. We just usually stick with kickboxing and karate, so we haven't been here in a while. Thought we'd come by and check it out, see if we wanted to give it another go."

"Made a decision yet?"

Aaron shrugged, exchanged a look with the others. "We're considering it. What do you think of it? Is it worth it?"

Draco thought back to the first question the other teen had asked him when he'd come in to change. "It's fun." He thought about how it felt to face off with an opponent, exchange blows, come out on top. "A bit of a rush if you're fighting someone good enough."

"Like getting a rush, then?"

He shrugged, not quite knowing exactly where the other teen was headed. "Yeah."

The three Muggles flashed each other rather devious grins. "In that case, I think we're all going to get along just fine."

The two dark-haired teens nodded in agreement, then grinned even wider as Blake went on. "But if you want a real rush, we've got just the thing."

"Really?" His natural suspicion crept into his voice as he watched them smirk at each other again. "And what would that be?"

"Well, you ever been rock climbing?" asked Aaron.

"Or sky diving?" questioned Blake.

Draco shook his head, turned to face Carren as he spoke. "What about base jumping?"

"No, can't say that I have. Why?"

"Want to get a real rush?"

Grey eyes narrowed as they swept over the three faces, noting the almost devious expressions, and the all out excitement gleaming from their eyes. The blond thought about all the things they'd mentioned, tried to remember if he'd ever read or seen anything about any of them. Then a picture burst to life in his mind, an image of someone leaping from a plane and rushing towards the earth, falling faster and faster until the person pulled their parachute. "Hell yeah."

The three others grinned ever wider. "Then you've come to the right people."

Draco grinned back, having the suspicion that Blake was spot on with that assessment. He knew for a fact that he was right fifteen minutes later when he climbed in the back of Aaron's brand new sports car and listened to the three rich, snobby adrenaline junkies discuss their next adventure. Yes, he'd ran into just exactly the right people: his kind of people.

End Chapter Five


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

Ginny Weasley could hardly contain the full, satisfied feeling in her stomach, a feeling so intense that she hadn't even been able to eat more than a few bites of the rather solemn but delicious Welcome Back Feast that had just completed. She was now back at Hogwarts, tucked away where her mother thought she would be kept safe from all the war preparations. She wondered, not for the first time, when and how, and if, Moody was going to talk to her mum about what she would really be doing when she wasn't in class.

The former Auror had assured Dumbledore that he would handle that, however, so she tried not to worry about it overmuch. She had plenty of other topics to keep her mind busy, like the tid-bit of information she and the former Headmaster had come across just the day before.

Clio was the Greek muse of history. The symbol attributed to Clio was the scroll. She'd seen a scroll on the sign above the doors of the mystery building. There was a museum just outside Wizarding London called the Cliopendium Of Wizarding History. It had become somewhat overshadowed when Hestia's Historia had been built about five years before, but it had been the largest collection of precious metal artifacts in England when Tom Riddle had been going to Hogwarts. The Clio, as it was often called, had, the summer after Riddle had graduated, housed a special display called 'Yesterday's Everyday Wizardry,' the title that she had seen on the banner in her second-hand memory.

Which meant that they had found the museum that even now, housed Helga Hufflepuff's cup, disguised and tainted as it was by the piece of his so-called soul that the Dark Lord had hidden inside of it all those years before. And tomorrow she would be meeting with Moody and Dumbledore back at Grimmauld Place to put together a plan of action for getting a hold of the Horcrux. And as soon as everything was in order, she would be going on the mission to steal the cup from the museum and bring it back to Headquarters, where they could work on destroying it once and for all.

Theories and speculations swirled around and around within her head, blurring her mind as she fell to sleep, twisting through her dreams and shadowing her waking thoughts the next morning and through the day. It was difficult for her to concentrate on her classes, hard for her to wade through it all even long enough for the youngest Weasley to take more than passing notice of her ex-boyfriend when he took his dinner with the staff and students that night. She couldn't spare an ounce of concentration for anything however, not even Harry. She was having a hard enough time containing her doubts, fears, and the small amount of excitement.

The thoughts and emotions were still churning inside her when she slipped out of the school and Apparated into an alleyway near Number Twelve. They were still there as she, Moody, and Dumbledore worked out a plan. They were still there as she made her way through the rest of week, waiting for Saturday, waiting for the Clio to close and their plan to get underway.

The time crept by slowly, but eventually it was time, and for all the emotions, all the nerves, all the brain-clouding thoughts, Ginny was ready. They were relying on her and she was not going to let anyone down. Not Moody, who wasn't all that sure she could handle the responsibility. Not Dumbledore who was so outwardly sure that she could. Not herself, who needed so badly to put the taunting memories to use against the very thing that had made them. She was ready. She had to be.

She had to put the doubts and fears aside as she stood with Moody just outside the school grounds. She had to do this, do it well, do it right. With one last, deep breath, she squared her shoulders and met the single piercing eye that was pinned on her.

"You ready, girl?"

Ginny didn't take away from the time or energy that she needed to maintain the ruthless hold she'd wrangled on her emotions, instead, she simply raised her wand, first at her accomplice, then at herself, and said the words that she had heard so many times in her dreams, in her memories of that first year. She'd heard Ron ask Hermione once how the older girl thought little Ginny Weasley had managed to sneak through the school so many nights, and do the Dark Lord's bidding. She'd wondered herself for a while. Then the dreams had started, the memories resurfaced, and she'd known.

"_Pedes Silentium_. _Dissimulo_."

The Silent Steps spell left little more than an odd muffled feeling in her ears as she shifted her feet, but in the instant it took the Concealing Charm to take hold, she felt the air around her shift, blur. She looked hard, carefully, at the space she knew Moody filled, but couldn't quite manage to make him out, and knew Tom's knowledge was once more standing her in good stead, for all the bad he had left her to deal with. The redhead didn't allow herself to think about that too much, simply Apparated, and as soon as she had regained her balance outside the Clio, she started towards the door, trusting that the ex-Auror was right behind her, though she could neither see nor hear him.

Her nerves were jangling, thrumming beneath the surface of her skin when she aimed her wand at the large double doors she had seen for the first time in the remnant of memory that had never belonged in her head.

"_Inflecto_," she whispered into the quiet, waiting for the heavy wards to flex under the Warping Spell, waiting for them to change just enough under her influence to allow her, and she assumed her accomplice, to slip through with a gentle push and a quiet pop. The residue of magic that the wards left on her skin made her want to scratch at every inch of her body, but she resisted the urge and continued forward.

With the wards bypassed, a simple Alohomora derivative gained the two entrance to the large, impressive building. Several heart pounding minutes saw her making her way through the long hallways, trusting that the infamous 'mad' eye was allowing her accomplice to follow her. What was most likely only a few minutes after she had left Hogwarts, and felt like a few hours, was all it took for her to recognize one particular hall, one particular shelf, one particular, innocent looking cup.

Another pair of Warping and Unlocking Charms later, she was lifting the golden artifact from its place and slipping it into the specially shielded moke-skin bag that the former Headmaster had acquired for her. She watched the magical bag swallow the cup, watched it contract around its contents and seemingly melt into the belt it was hanging on. No one could see, let alone get a hold of the cup now, even if they somehow managed to see her. And no one that did would get her, she reminded herself with a deep breath. Moody was right there, somewhere, and he was protecting her. That was the plan. Everything was going according to plan.

Everything was running smoothly, including the Convincing Charm she placed on the shelf with a quiet _Credo_ to make anyone who might look, believe that everything was just as it should be, that nothing was missing. But something was missing, and it would stay missing, she told herself as she reset the locks and wards on the shelf and headed back the way she'd come. The cup was going to make it back to Grimmauld, and it would be destroyed, she insisted silently as she pushed her way back through the wards and replaced everything with a swish and flick, and another memory.

A weight began to lift from her chest, leaving her to breathe almost normally as she Apparated to the alley outside Headquarters. The answering pop she heard behind her was a reassuring one, and she was able to remove the charms on herself without her wand shaking in her hand and her fellow thief did the same. It had worked, she thought with a smile, surprised to find her expression echoed on Moody's face, albeit in a rather disconcerting manner.

"Let's get that inside, shall we, Miss Weasley?"

It took a moment for her to process it, but as she followed the paranoid and suspicious wizard into Number Twelve, it occurred to her that he had not called her girl, but instead used her name, for the first time since she had met the real him.

Another smile twisted her lips as they made their way to his rooms and recounted the night's events to the wizard waiting for them there. The former professor was well pleased with how things had gone, and a feeling of satisfaction hung between the three, heavy and pleasant. Unfortunately, that feeling had evaporated by the time the three of them saw one another again several weeks later.

"It does not appear to be working," Dumbledore stated with an infuriatingly pleasant tone.

Moody scowled; swished and flicked yet again. "_Incendio_."

Ginny sighed, ran a hand through her long red hair in frustration. "But all the research, everything we've found, indicates that the only way to destroy a heavily bespelled item of metal is to destroy it with fire."

"It would seem we may have misinterpreted some detail," the ex-Headmaster stated calmly.

"_Extermino,_" the ex-Auror muttered irritably.

"I don't think so, I read it all five times." Ginny sighed yet again. "I worked and reworked the Arithmancy. You checked it over yourself, Professor, we were right. The metal itself has to be broken down, the form of the item unmade in order to open the shielding to make it possible for us to break the wards and destroy the Horcrux without our spells rebounding onto us."

"Yes, I still believe that to be true, I also believe it to be where I went wrong in my destruction of the ring. But no spell or charm to burn or alight that I am aware of, seems to work, and we have tried most of them at least twice."

Ginny shook her head, rubbed her tired eyes before opening them and staring resolutely at the small cup. She couldn't think of a single thing that could be altered in their interpretation. The metal... she blinked as her thoughts ground to a halt. "Metal burns, like wood, but it doesn't turn to ash, it turns to liquid. It boils; it melts."

Brown met sparkling blue. "Quite right my dear, it does, doesn't it?"

Alastor Moody let out a rough, nearly acidic laugh. "Melts. Well, bloody hell, that was obvious. _Decoquo_."

The cup glowed for a moment, far brighter than it had on any of their previous attempts. Then it began to bubble and drip until it was a puddle of liquid gold with a visible film of blue magical residue above it. That film, however, was cracked. Dumbledore aimed his wand directly at the crack and intoned the Disarming Spell he had created himself years before, when Grindelwald had lived.

The crack grew, spread, splintered, until the blue film crumbled and disappeared, leaving a dark smudge in the middle of the golden pool. No one spoke for a moment. Then the aged wizard, one of the only two Voldemort truly feared, cast a single spell and destroyed another little piece of the Dark Lord's soul.

End Chapter Six

Author's Notes:

The spells I used here that were not cannon are of my own creation. I looked them up in several Latin dictionaries online, having no knowledge of the language, I couldn't conjugate them, but I am fairly happy with the results anyway. If there's anyone out there that does know the proper conjugation, please let me know.

The translations, for anyone who is curious, are as follows:

Pedes Silentium: going on foot, walking; silence, obscurity

Dissimulo: to conceal, disguise, keep secret, leave unnoticed

Inflecto: to warp, change, sway

Credo: to believe, trust

Extermino: burn down, set on fire

Decoquo: to boil down, boil away (metals), melt away


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Ginny tossed and turned fitfully as the facts and conjectures tumbled through her exhausted mind. She should be sleeping, she knew; rehashing it all would get her nowhere, yet she couldn't help but do just that, as she lay in the silent room that was hers whenever she stayed at Headquarters. Well, hers and Hermione's, but the older girl was off somewhere with Ron and Harry, and therefore would be no help in diverting the redhead's thoughts, even if she had wanted her to be. So they strayed once more to what had happened and been learned. And what hadn't.

Tom Riddle's diary. Marvolo's ring. They had been destroyed before she'd even become aware of the existence of the Horcruxes, bringing the number that needed to be destroyed before Harry could take on Voldemort himself down to four. Since she had begun helping Moody and Dumbledore, the number had been further reduced by two. She had seen the demise of Hufflepuff's cup herself months before, and could remember with sickening clarity learning of the locket's destruction. She hadn't been told, of course, as the only sign as to the fate of Slytherin's necklace was the note that Harry and the disguised Snape had found that fateful night. But she remembered the bitter satisfaction that had been in his pain-filled eyes as the young wizard had lain at her feet, blood running from his nose and mouth.

"You're too late. I destroyed it."

He'd been trembling from the after-effects of the Cruciatus she'd cast, but his pain was not enough, not enough to pay for his words, his traitorous actions. Even the repeated casting of Crucio that followed had not been payment enough. The killing curse that she'd eventually cast on a whimpering Regulus Adalfo Black's huddling, pain-wracked form had still left her simmering with rage.

She. Her. He. Him. The words bounced around inside her skull with enough force and speed to leave her head echoing with pain. It was all well and good to know that the images and emotions that drifted into her conscious thoughts had originally belonged to the Dark Lord and not her. It was one thing for the former Headmaster to tell her that she merely housed the memories and that doing so was no reflection whatsoever on her as a person. It was not the least bit helpful to know intellectually that she had not done or thought any of the things that she remembered, especially in the quiet solitude of her mind.

She ran a pale and barely steady hand over her face before opening glazed brown eyes to stare at the cracked ceiling above her. "I didn't do it."

The words hung hot and desperate in the stuffy air of the room, but the sound of them brought the declaration to life in a way her silent denials could not do. "I didn't hurt him. I didn't kill him."

There was no one to agree with her statement. Not even Crookshanks, the only other occupant of the room, deigned to so much as look over at the obnoxious human who had dared disturb his sleep, though he did thump his tail a few times before rolling over. The lack of response was neither disheartening, nor comforting. Dumbledore had made a point to remind her that she had had nothing to do with the things that she could now remember. She knew the truth, but it was little aid when she could still see the wand being raised in a hand that her memory told her was her own. Truth was a poor defense when she could hear the curses being cast, could still see his body slump at feet that weren't hers. Truth could not make her forget the feel of the rage and the hatred and the foul pleasure that had seemed to fill her in that moment.

The sensations rushed back on her and the youngest Weasley sprung from her bed and began to pace furiously as though enough restless circuits of the room would chase the feelings and recollections back into the recesses from which they had sprung a few weeks before.

She'd been walking to her History of Magic class at the time, but had been lucky enough that most everyone had already left for their next class by the time she had made it out of the classroom. She'd been lucky that no one had been around to notice her stumble as the memory slammed into her, or to see her lean against the wall for support as the dizziness and nausea left her unable to walk for several minutes afterward. She'd even been lucky enough that by the time she had wrenched herself back into the present, she'd been able to make her way undisturbed, to the hospital wing, where the pallor of her complexion and the trembling in her limbs, had made her bid for a day's rest all the more convincing. The fact that the note from Pomfrey had allowed her to withdraw to her rooms, and so slip away to Grimmauld Place unnoticed, had been a further bit of luck.

The recovered memory had left her feeling too ill however, to enjoy that luck, or the fact that she had been able to answer a lingering and vital question, and in turn, whittle down the list of remaining Horcruxes. By the time she had felt steady enough to appreciate the progress beyond the methods used to gain it, a sense of enjoyment was far from her reach. In fact, a rather hollow sensation of stagnation had grown to fill her instead.

The recollection of Regulus' betrayal of the Dark Lord and his subsequent murder by her - **his -** hand had been the only memory she had regained in the months since the visions that had led them to the museum. For all the help she had been able to give Moody and Dumbledore through Tom's memories, the youngest Weasley was starting to wonder if her usefulness was reaching its end. The memories left in her mind from the diary were not infinite. There was no telling how much more information she could give to the Order, if there was anything more at all.

A muted sound of frustration tore itself from her as she turned sharply on her heel for the twenty-eighth time in the last minute and a half. Ginny felt the walls begin to close in on her as the possibilities assailed her, hastening her steps until she had reached the door and not slowing them as she pulled it open and made her way down the empty corridor.

The diary could have conceivably contained memories regarding all the Horcruxes, if indeed the part of him that had resided in it had remained connected to the Dark Lord until its destruction. There was no real way to tell, however, if that was the case. They had seen no indication that Voldemort was aware of his Horcruxes, no sign that he retained enough of a tangible connection to them to feel it when they were destroyed.

There was no proof that the connection between the soul parts had not been frozen when they were broken up. Obviously, the mere fact that parts of his soul still existed was enough to keep him alive, after a fashion; but whether or not there was anything more than their origin between the parts, was simply conjecture. Even if there was nothing more, if the diary had been the last of his Horcruxes to be made, as might be indicated by the casual way it was left in Lucius Malfoy's care, it could still have contained information on all the other portions of the Dark Lord's soul that remained.

Either way, there was a possibility that the diary had at one time housed all the information they needed, but even if that was the case, there was still no way to tell if all of what had been inside its pages had been left inside her. Certainly, it would be logical to assume that in its destruction, parts of it had been lost. But how many parts? And how many of the remaining parts had been left in the recesses of her mind? Ginny wasn't sure, but with each week that passed without her remembering anything more, she became more and more afraid that there was nothing left for her to remember, nothing left for her to give to the wizards that seemed so sure she was the key to finding, taking, and destroying the parts of Voldemort's soul.

The young witch let out a heavy sigh, desperately wanting to return to her bed and sleep without such fears and questions plaguing her. It was a futile hope, however, and she well knew it. She had been able to think of little else for the last month or more, which had been bad enough while she was in school and meeting with Moody and Dumbledore once a week or so to discuss any progress, or lack thereof. It had been bad enough when she only had her free time to spend researching and contemplating. It had been bad enough when the rest of her time was fairly well engaged with classes and homework.

Now, however, as her Christmas holiday stretched before her, empty of distractions, it was even worse. She'd already finished all the schoolwork she'd been assigned in an attempt to occupy her thoughts, and now she was left with nothing else to do other than obsess over why she hadn't remembered anything else useful, and whether or not she ever would.

Ginny ran a hand through her long red hair and swallowed another sigh as she continued to pace through the dark halls of Number Twelve. What was she going to do for the next week and a half? She'd brought all the books she'd been allowed to take out of Hogwarts, but they were no more promising than any of the others that she had read the past few months, both at school, and with the former Headmaster. And it was beginning to try her patience to look through tome after tome without the slightest progress being made. It wasn't even as if she were searching for anything specific, but more that she was simply reading everything she could in an effort to find something that might tell her what to look for.

It was beyond frustrating. She felt as if she were simply running in place, searching and searching, and still finding nothing. No matter how hard she looked, or how much she read, nothing made any sense. She was tired of waiting for things to fall into place, but there wasn't really anything else that she could do, other than hope that something would trigger a memory. The only problem was, she had no idea what memory she was trying to trigger. She had no clue what she needed to remember, because she hadn't known it in the first place.

Still, she tried everything she could think of, tried reading anything that stood out to her, and many things that didn't. She tried thinking really hard about Voldemort, and Horcruxes, and then she tried not thinking about them at all. Nothing seemed to work, and the youngest Weasley had about reached her limit.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, turning on her heel once more as she reached the end of the hall. She cursed again a moment later as the sound of voices suddenly broke the silence, the three individuals she'd hoped to avoid apparently moving towards her.

It wasn't that she didn't want to see her brother and the others, she still considered them her friends, she just felt awkward around them since she had started working on the search for the Horcruxes. She knew they wanted to be working with Moody as she was, knew they all felt left out and ignored. She knew they were growing ever more restless and resentful at being holed up in the school and forced to study and prepare with the professors and Aurors that Moody had arranged to meet them. And she knew that if any of them had the slightest idea of what she was doing, that they would be less than thrilled.

Despite knowing that, however, she wanted to tell them. She wanted to discuss the dreams and memories with her big brother, she wanted to talk through the few clues she'd accumulated with Hermione, she wanted to... Well, to be honest, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do as far as Harry was concerned. She still had feelings for him, she knew; it had only been a little more than six months since he'd broken up with her, and as she'd carried a torch for him for five years before they had gotten together, she was hard pressed to just turn off what she felt. But in those six months she'd found a distance from him, a space from which she could view him more objectively than she ever had before.

Maybe it was some immature and spiteful part of her that resented being tossed away when things got tough, a sliver of annoyance at his overly noble and somewhat selfish attitude. Ginny shook her head. For all that she might have some justification in feeling that way, she just didn't, not really. Well, maybe a smidgen, but only when she was feeling especially frustrated or mope-y about something else, and even then it wasn't really enough to explain her attitude towards her ex-boyfriend. Perhaps it was simply a matter of getting what she'd always thought she'd wanted and realizing it wasn't really what she'd thought it would be. Perhaps it was just that she'd grown up a little more over the last few months, and that working with Moody and Dumbledore, working against the Dark Lord, had given her a new perspective on things.

She hadn't considered her feelings for Harry to be hero-worship, even when they had been, but she had to admit that a small part of her had been more attracted to the boy she'd seen and heard about from Ron than the boy she'd actually known. After all, even when she'd tried to move on and had been able to act like a real person around him, even when she'd hung out with him and Hermione and Ron, she hadn't truly been part of the group. No one else could truly be part of that group, the three of them were simply too good of friends for a fourth to rival them, and she didn't begrudge them that. She just knew that that made it nearly impossible for her to ever really fit in. If she hadn't been Ron's little sister, and Harry hadn't gone so long seeing her as a semi-sister of his own, it would have been easier. But then again, maybe not.

All she knew was that she didn't feel comfortable around him any more, at least not as comfortable as one should feel around a potential boyfriend. Or even an ex-boyfriend. And it wasn't just because she felt guilty for keeping things from him and Ron and Hermione, though she did. It was more that whenever she was around him she expected certain things from herself, certain reactions and feelings that had begun to desert her. It was hard to face what she sometimes saw as a failure, and even harder to admit that she didn't always regret being unable to live up to what she, and most everyone else, expected of her when it came to Harry Potter.

The fact that she was keeping her second-hand memories secret from the older boy and his friends only made it worse. And that was without even factoring in what she was not telling them about her work with Moody. Not to mention their former Headmaster. Dumbledore. Now that was certainly something that made her more than a little uncomfortable and more than a lot guilty whenever she was faced with the Trio. She'd grieved with them all when the aged wizard had first 'died' and had watched them continue to grieve after she had learned that there was no true reason to do so.

She'd nearly slipped when they had been escorted back to the Burrow for the wedding, nearly told them that the bearded man was still alive. The redhead had barely stopped herself in time, and had from then on endeavored to keep her distance as Moody's warning had rung in her ears.

"As much as those kids have proved themselves to our side, we can't forget that they could betray us, even without meaning to. Remember, girl, not a one of them can keep a secret from another of them, and Harry never finished his Occlumency lessons. Voldemort still has access to his mind if he really wants it."

It was logical, of course, that none of them know the truth. It prevented the Dark Lord from finding it out through them, and at the same time, reinforced the useful lie should Voldemort actually use his link to Harry to 'check in' on the opposing side. Yet it still felt like she herself was betraying her friends and family without meaning to, simply by keeping quiet and letting them hurt and fear when they didn't need to.

That feeling of betrayal left her more than slightly relieved when the voices died away, indicating that they had perhaps turned down another hall and were currently moving away from her. The relief was so great, in fact, that she didn't notice that only two of the voices had reached her ears, and that the third had in fact, been missing entirely. If she had, she would certainly have thought better of turning into the library a minute later, as that was exactly the place that she was most likely to find Hermione Granger. Which is exactly what she did.

The bushy-haired witch was seated at the small antique desk on the far side of the room when the youngest Weasley entered it, and even before the image fully registered, the redhead's nerves began to fray. Those nerves, however, were spared further torment, at least on that score, as all thoughts of her brother's best friend fled her mind an instant later.

All it took was an instant for the sensations to crash against her inner barriers as the memory burst forth. It was pure luck and raw will that kept Hermione from realizing she had been there at all as Ginny silently fled the room. She cast a quick succession of spells to keep her undetected as she raced to the rooms that held the current and former heads of the Order of the Phoenix, though the waves of nausea and pulses of skull-numbing pain prevented her from being consciously aware of doing so.

All Ginny Weasley was aware of as she slipped into the small sitting room and slumped onto Alastor Moody's couch in front of a worried Albus Dumbledore, was the image she had seen superimposed over the sight of Hermione hunched over the old desk. All she could think of was what she had remembered: the identity of the fifth Horcrux.

End Chapter Seven


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

"You can't be bloody serious!" Mad Eye Moody cursed with enthusiasm, shaking his head in disbelief. "All this time we were looking for something of Rowena's and we never thought to look for a **desk**?"

Dumbledore sat calmly in his chair, waiting for his friend to work out some of his disbelief and frustration.

"A bloody desk. Ravenclaw. For Merlin's sake, how is it we never thought of a desk? The woman probably lived at the thing."

"There was no indication in any of our sources that the desk she used here was still in existence or even anything special. We looked for all her most prized possessions of which we were aware, including her best spell books and her favorite quill. We even tracked down her wedding robes. We did all we could have known to do given our available information, Alastor. You have no reason to feel as though any of us missed something. There has never been any mention by anyone anywhere of Rowena Ravenclaw's desk that I am aware of."

The former Auror scowled at the elder wizard's accurate logic. "No, there hasn't been," he admitted, "which only means that it will be that much harder for us to find."

Albus smiled somewhat indulgently at the pessimistic words. "And that much less likely that Tom would suspect us of ever finding out about it. Which could mean that he may have taken less care in concealing it."

Moody let out a low grunt in response, taking little comfort in the supposition.

For his part, Dumbledore seemed undiscouraged by the task that awaited them now that they had finally learned the identity of the fifth Horcrux. The elderly wizard had in fact been in so jolly a mood since the announcement that Ginny nearly recognized him as the twinkling-eyed Headmaster she had met six years before. It was heartening to see some semblance of that man, particularly as she had been the one to deliver the news that had cheered him so greatly.

At the same time, however, she felt as though she had somehow raised his hopes falsely. Remembering Ravenclaw's desk was more a fluke than anything else, in her mind. The memory itself had been a mere flash of insight, as opposed to the fuller recollections she had gotten in regards to the cup and necklace. There had been no visions, no remnants of thought or emotion; simply the knowledge of Rowena's old desk housing a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul. It made the young witch even more uncertain of her usefulness than she had been before, despite the fact that she had indeed remembered the desk in the first place.

Neither wizard noticed the redhead's silence, or any indication of the steadily more melancholy thoughts, instead continuing their discussion as to the likelihood of locating the desk and how exactly to go about doing so.

"Tom has always been over confidant, and more self indulging than was good for him, even as a boy. He would have thought as much about the satisfaction that he could garner from the hiding place as he would the location's security. For all that his choices have proved effective in their purpose, the sentimentality with which they were chosen has been key in discovering them. I am sure that the same will hold true in this case."

Moody made a noise in the back of his throat that neatly summed up his opinion as to the elder wizard's thoughts. "Voldemort is no soft hearted ninny who will be undone by his emotion, Albus. He would have thought strategically in finding somewhere to hide the desk."

"Of course, Alastor," he conceded patiently, "Tom was always an intelligent boy, but all the places we have found were chosen with regard to their meaning to him as well as the ease and effectiveness with which they could be concealed. The cave was chosen more for its meaning then for its isolation."

The former Auror cut him off sharply. "And yet it cannot be discounted that the cave's isolation played a large part in its selection as a hiding place. He wouldn't have gone to the trouble of splitting his soul into pieces only to leave himself no way to ensure that at least some of those pieces remained safe."

"If by safe you mean somewhere it will be unseen or untouched, then I believe you are mistaken."

"You may believe whatever the hell you want, Riddle may be a right evil bastard but he's a cunning one. Surely he would have placed more importance on safety then he would have on-"

Ginny shook her head at Moody's words. It may seem more logical to Moody for Tom to have relied less on his emotions, but logic was not necessarily something he was known for. Having a large and perhaps unstable ego however, was something he had **always** been known for. And that very same ego, the redhead thought, would not have been adequately stroked by secreting away any more of his Horcruxes than he had felt absolutely necessary, despite Moody's thoughts on the subject. Unless, of course, those Horcruxes had been placed somewhere that they could receive the proper respect.

"-his ego." The almost absently muttered words fell from the witch's lips without her even being aware of it, but her voice brought the wizards' debate to a sudden halt.

It was the first time she had spoken since she had arrived, and Dumbledore and Moody seemed almost surprised by her presence, as though they had forgotten she was even there. The surprise wore off fairly quickly however, and they turned as one to face her, their eyes narrowing as they thought over what they had said and inserted her comment in its proper place. Moody opened his mouth to speak, but Dumbledore silenced him with the raise of a hand as he continued to stare intently at the redhead.

"Have you remembered something, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny shook her head, her voice somewhat hesitant as she answered, "No but, I think, I mean I know. . ."

She worried her lower lip with her teeth as she struggled to find the words to explain how she knew that Moody was on the wrong track. "In the other memories about the Horcruxes, I- he felt so smug, so excited by the fact that they would be seen, adored, honored, in one way or another. The cup was seen by droves of witches and wizards before the Clio became less known, and the diary was watched over by Lucius Malfoy, who held a sick idolization of the Dark Lord. There's a sense of satisfaction that the Horcruxes are safe, that he outsmarted everyone, but the haughty smugness, the stroking of his own ego is much stronger."

The grizzled wizard narrowed his good eye at her. "The necklace and ring were hidden out of the way, girl, no one saw them. How could that have stroked his ego, eh?"

Ginny swallowed under the skeptical gaze, though the time she had spent working with the intimidating former Auror helped to dull the full edge of his glare. "I don't know how he felt about where he left them, I don't remember hiding them like I do the others. But the passing thoughts I have had on them have always felt... hollow somehow. I thought that was because I don't have the actual memories, but-"

Dumbledore cast her an encouraging look when she faltered, prodding her along gently. "But what, Miss Weasley?"

"Well, I think the hollow feeling isn't what I'm missing, but what he was missing when he thought about hiding them."

"The reverence he felt should have been directed at them, you mean?"

The redhead nodded hesitantly at her former Headmaster's words. She wilted a little further under Moody's continued scrutiny, as he made a noncommittal sound in response to her agreement. Ginny was insecure enough in her conjecture without the memory to back it up that she almost didn't elaborate further, but being a Gryffindor lent her the courage to continue.

"The cave and the shack, they were from his past, and while being a descendant of Slytherin was something he would have been proud of, the state his mother had been reduced to would not have been something he'd want people to see. And the reminder of his time in the Muggle orphanage that stayed in the cave would have been equally as distasteful to bring attention to."

Ginny took a breath, glancing up at her audience in an attempt to gauge their reaction. Dumbledore appeared to be thinking quite hard on her words, and while Moody didn't seem terribly impressed with her reasoning, he didn't look like he was ready to dismiss it offhand. Feeling slightly more sure that she was making some sense out of her impressions of the dark remnants floating about in her head, the youngest Weasley pushed forward with a little more strength to her voice.

"The diary stood for the new start he was making of himself at Hogwarts, a connection to Slytherin that he would actually want people to see. The cup showed how he was making a spot for himself in Wizarding history. Those were things he wanted seen, wanted fawned over, so he made sure they would be, and the satisfaction he got from doing so, coupled with the lack of satisfaction he found in simply secreting away the ring and necklace would probably have encouraged him to place the other Horcruxes somewhere that they could be given what he thought would have been the proper attention and respect."

The long white beard swayed slightly as its owner nodded thoughtfully and scratched his chin with his good hand. The magical eye slowed in its whirling, as though looking into the head that housed it in order to get some glimpse of the spinning thoughts within.

"There is a certain strategic logic to hiding in plain sight," the gruff voice conceded.

"Quite right, Alastor," the elder wizard agreed. "But in whose sight would Tom have left Rowena's desk?"

They looked over at the young witch expectantly, hoping that she might have some further insight as to the desk's location. Ginny shook her head silently, biting her lip as they turned back to one another and began debating the remaining possibilities, but her inability to add to the discussion didn't foster the helpless frustration that it had only minutes before. For all that she had not remembered anything, let alone the crucial detail needed to pinpoint the desk, she had still contributed to the effort, had still helped steer the search in the right direction simply by applying what she had already learned.

The feat left her with the feeling that perhaps she could still be useful after all, and made her all the more determined to be exactly that. And in an effort to do so, the youngest Weasley bent her mind to the task, turning over every bit of thought, emotion, and memory that she retained from her first year, looking for anything that she might be able to glean from them as to Tom's possible choice of a hiding place for Ravenclaw's desk.

"Who the bloody hell else would he trust with a piece of his soul? Who else would give the damn thing the admiration he wants?" Moody demanded.

Albus shook his head slightly, his eyes staring somewhat sightlessly as he ran through the options in his head. "Full fledge Death Eaters are not the only witches and wizards that respect the Dark Lord, Alastor. There may well be many who admire his ideology and actions who have not pledged themselves to him."

"That may be true, but damn it, if we start with all of them it will take us forever to narrow down the list."

"And if we eliminate too many to start with we may look over the correct individual entirely."

The former Auror let out a sound of frustration, causing his magical eye to swivel almost maniacally in his head. Dumbledore remained outwardly calm, though his gaze showed the slightest glimmer of growing frustration. Whether he would have voiced such an emotion would remain unknown, however, as their words broke through the redhead's thoughts and brought her once more into the debate.

"Why does it have to be an individual who admires the Dark Lord specifically?"

"And what exactly-"

The elder wizard cut off the outburst before Moody could really get started, instead motioning silently for her to continue.

"I mean, the cup wasn't admired because it was the Horcrux, but because it was supposedly part of the museum's ancient precious metals collection. Couldn't Voldemort just as easily have left the desk itself unaltered and left it to be revered simply as Rowena Ravenclaw's writing desk?"

The defensive ire that had overtaken Mad Eye Moody's expression when the young witch had appeared to be questioning him again began to drain from his face as he started to think through what had been said. Similarly, the supposedly deceased wizard looked to be in deep contemplation, his aged but sharp mind turning her supposition over and over in an attempt to work out exactly how likely it could be.

Both wizards seemed to come to a decision a few moments later as they turned to one another and exchanged the type of silent communication only possible after working so closely with one another over the past months.

"Those who would collect Founders' artifacts would be notably more trustworthy versus the type of individuals who would wish to possess something of Tom's."

"But how many of 'em are there?"

"Quite a significant number, I am afraid."

"But who," Ginny interjected quietly as the wizards' optimism began to flag, "would place the most importance on Ravenclaw's stuff?"

Dumbledore grew thoughtful, and Moody tried to remember all that he had heard and read in regards to the Founders over the course of their research into the possible Horcruxes.

"Rowena doesn't have any family still living," the gruff voice stated.

"Indeed she does not. Tom himself is the only surviving heir to any of the Four. Yet I seem to recall another member of the original faculty who has a surviving descendant, the History of Magic professor I believe. Yes, yes, an ancestor of our own Professor Binns; Professor Ethelward was his name."

The former Auror's good eye narrowed. "Alfred Ethelward. He has himself quite an estate in Fittleborough, eh?"

"Quite right. And he is known to fancy himself a historian, particularly in regards to the Founding Four. A rather ideal candidate I'd say, would you not, Alastor?"

The wizard gave a stiff nod and a gruff sound of agreement when the almost sparkling blue gaze landed on him before moving on to the third occupant of the room.

"And you, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny paused, thinking furiously, saying the name over and over in her head, trying to remember anything that might have been left behind from the diary that could have something to do with the name Ethelward.

"I just don't remember." The words were spoken in a frustrated tone. "Nothing sounds particularly familiar, but it does make a lot of sense."

"Yes," he said with a nod that caused his white beard to sway, "a fair bit too much sense to ignore."

Moody grunted. "Not to be ignored doesn't mean not to be investigated, Albus."

"But of course, Alastor. Unfortunately any investigation that is possible from here has already been done. Not a tome or resource within our reach has been left unused these last months; leaving us but one true option." Blue eyes, holding some glimmer of their old sparkle, landed on the youngest member of their group.

"Fancy a trip to Fittleborough, Miss Weasley?"

End Chapter Eight


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

Ginny Weasley swallowed hard past the nerves building within her. They simmered in her gut like a toxic potion, bubbled up into her throat, lodging there, making it hard to breathe evenly as she placed the specially, secretly, spelled Portkey back into the small pocket in her robe. A few days before, when Dumbledore had asked her if she'd like to go to the Ethelward estate to investigate whether or not it housed the fifth Horcrux, she'd readily answered in the affirmative. But now, as she stood in the secluded glade just outside the border of Fittleborough, she felt a twinge of regret at her decision.

Naturally, she had assumed that her excursion to the estate would be like her trip to the Clio, at least in that she would be accompanied by Moody. Yet here she stood, with no Moody, invisible or otherwise, anywhere around to provide support or backup. Despite the spells and tricks that she had learned from the diary, despite all the knowledge that Tom had given her so that she could successfully traipse around the school creating havoc and releasing the basilisk, she was less than confident about her upcoming task.

Even knowing her uncertainty, the former Headmaster had decided that it would be too hard to hide or explain away the absence of both Ginny and Moody either from Grimmauld Place or Hogwarts. As it was, the frequency of the wizard's disappearances during their latest round of research into the Horcrux's identity and location had been in danger of being noticed by the already suspicious and restless Trio. Presently, there was a delicate balance of diversion and distraction keeping the indispensable young wizard and his friends safe and confined until the final confrontation, and Dumbledore did not want to disturb that, and risk anything happening to their only hope of defeating the Dark Lord once and for all. To that end, he had asked Moody to keep Harry and the others occupied while Ginny was sent to Wizarding Wessex.

Objectively, she understood the decision, and knowing the three as well as she did, she was well aware that they had been lucky to be able to keep her brother, Harry, and Hermione out of the fray for as long as they had. Because of that, she knew steps needed to be taken to maintain the Trio's isolation.

They thought that Moody was now the head of the Order, and that if anything were happening, that he would be involved. If he disappeared, even one more time, they may well try to follow him as they had attempted to do the night she had met with him to finalize plans for the trip to the would-be historian's estate. And Harry, Hermione, and Ron finding out what she and Moody had been up to was not something that they needed. If that knowledge spurred the three to venture out on their own search for the remaining Horcruxes, or to discover that Dumbledore was actually still alive, the result could be disastrous.

Certainly the possibility of her brother or his friends being caught or killed, or unwittingly revealing through Harry's scar that Dumbledore hadn't been killed, took precedence over any difficulty she might have in determining if they were right about Ethelward possessing the desk. At least that was what she reminded herself as she pointed her wand at herself.

"_Dissimulo_. _Pedes Silentium_."

Even knowing that she was now concealed and that her movement would be inaudible, thanks to the spells Tom had taught her, it took her several seconds and a few deep breaths before the youngest Weasley took her first steps out of the glade and towards the sprawling house she could see a few minutes' jog from her position.

The things she had learned her first year, regardless of how long it had taken her to remember them, added to everything else she had recalled from the foreign memories inside her head, nearly ensured that she could get into and out of the estate without being detected. Still, she had relatively little experience at breaking and entering, and even less at doing it by herself. At least in her first year, Tom had been in control of what she was doing and could have therefore gotten her out of any problem that might have arisen.

Now, she was truly on her own, with only remnants of his knowledge and memories to guide her. That, her vaulted Gryffindor bravery, and of course, her Weasley stubbornness.

Surely with the three behind her she would prove successful, and worthy of the task that the older wizards had entrusted her with. After all, Moody's presence at the museum had proved unnecessary. And her skills and memories, even if they hadn't been hers to start with, had not let her down yet. She was capable of the mission before her. She would complete this assignment, and bring them one step closer to acquiring the fifth Horcrux. She would bring the Order that much closer to destroying the evil bastard that had lured her eleven-year-old self into a fraud of a friendship and proceeded to take over her mind, rob her of the innocent childhood she may have otherwise had, and then left remnants of his soiled mind within her own.

The young witch's expression hardened with her resolve, her stride growing wider and smoother as she approached her target. About a hundred yards from the walls, she halted with a silent nod as she felt the humming of the estate's exterior wards a mere foot in front of her. They weren't basic wards, such as the ones that surrounded the Burrow's boundaries. No, these were rather considerably more complex defensive shields meant to not only keep the property from being noticed by any passing Muggles, but to keep any of those passersby - Muggle or otherwise - out of the property.

The complexity, however, looked to in fact prove more help than hindrance to the estate's current uninvited guest. The layering of spells and wards was complicated to the point of being overdone... dangerously overdone. At least it would be dangerous to the integrity of the defensives if she had anything to say about it. Brown eyes narrowed as she waved her wand over the invisible wall in a careful pattern that left faint symbols drifting temporarily in the air before her. Ginny repeated her motions several times as she made her way along the warding line, examining each set of symbols closely before retreating several feet along her path and coming to a stop with a small smile.

Each layer of spells and wards was worked into the next, layered and entwined, the combination meant to be stronger than the original pieces. It was a daunting obstacle, yet not impossible to overcome, especially when one was able to find a place where all the layers were not combined as seamlessly as they should have been. The section of wards she was facing at that moment was not terribly unlike the surrounding sections, but if the proper spells were applied, the incongruity of the merging wards was apparent. And being thus exposed, it left the youngest Weasley the opening she needed.

Taking a deep breath, Ginny got to work. Keeping the small kink in sight, she cautiously worked her way between the magical fibers, enlarging the gap a little bit more with each pass of her wand until the hole in the mesh could be pulled open enough for her to slip through without setting off the alarms.

"_Patefacio_," the redhead stated with a growing smile. The sight of the opening widening for her passage sent a thrill of accomplishment, and a rush of confidence through the witch and she quickly stepped onto the warded property. She kept her focus on her goal, however, and with an absent "_restituo_," she left her first triumph behind her and headed silently towards the manor itself.

The jog to the main building was long enough to leave the sixth-year slightly out of breath by the time she reached the shadow of the large stone walls, but not so long that she had forgotten her previous victory with the wards and grown nervous. Still, she forced herself to stop an arm's length from the wall and examine it in the same way as she had the wards.

What she found took a moment's longer translation than it had on the grounds. The second set of wards were not more exterior wards, nor were they truly interior ones. Instead, the magical barrier was worked into the building itself, designed to detect any aberration in the walls such as a person trying to walk over the threshold, or attempting to breach the walls. No spell or charm she knew of would bypass the shield, as it was codependent on the integrity of the walls themselves. There was one spell, however, that might blind the ward's detectors to her presence, or at least fool them into thinking that she was supposed to be there.

Casting her gaze over the surrounding area, the witch searched for a fragment of the spell's anchor- the stone of the walls. There were several chips of stone that had flaked off and fallen to the ground, but most were close enough to it that her picking them up might trip the wards. One piece, though, was about a foot away from the building, and soon found itself in the redhead's possession. Once she had obtained part of what the spells would detect as belonging to the wall, Ginny slowly began pulling out the pale vestige of the estate's own magical signature and casting several replications of it until she had a patch of iridescent energy that she could stretch to cover herself.

Effectively draped in the walls' own magic, the honorary Order member tentatively touched the rough stone. A moment's breathless pause proved her spellwork solid and she quickly set about scaling the walls with a quiet, "_escendo_."

Approximately ten yards up, she quietly unlocked a wide bay window with a wave of her wand and slipped inside. The redhead winced as she landed a little harder than she'd planned, reminding herself that her silencing charm was still in place. Trusting that it, along with her concealment spell, still held fast, the petite sixteen-year-old softly closed the window behind her and made her way to the door on the other side of the large room. Before leaving what appeared to be an unused bedroom, however, she took the opportunity to cast a tracing spell that would help lead her to the strongest source of passive magic in the area.

Inanimate objects, especially those previously spelled or warded, gave off traces of those spells, as well as any magic they absorbed from their owners or surroundings. Given that the desk she sought had been owned and used for years by one of the strongest witches in history, and had then been imbued with a portion of Riddle's powerful, if evil, soul, she was certain that it would be the first thing her spell would detect.

Ginny's assumption seemed likely as her wand pointed her towards the interior of the manor, where the rooms would have no windows to let in sunlight that might damage the books or wood or other surfaces of priceless antiques. The minutes it took her to reach her destination, while short, were tense and nerve-racking for the redhead as she strained to hear any sound that might indicate the approach of another individual or the activation of some unseen alarm.

When her wand finally indicated that she was within several yards of the source of magic that she was looking for, she halted and stared unerringly at the large double doors in front of her. Lowering her arm, but keeping her wand gripped tightly at her side, she bit her lip. This was as far as her spell would take her, and there was no telling what lay in the room beyond. Would she know the desk when she saw it? If she saw it? The glimpse of insight that had informed her that it was indeed a desk they were looking for had not granted her an actual visual of the object in question and her well of memories had been dry as of late. Did she even possess any other recollections, or had she uncovered all the remnants of the diary that existed within her?

There was really only one way to find out.

With a deep breath, Ginny reached out and carefully pushed the solid oak doors open and stepped into the largest library she had ever seen outside of Hogwarts. The comparisons to Madame Pince's domain went beyond the size of the room, however, but included the number of seating options and writing surfaces that it offered. From her position she could see at least half a dozen tables and desks. The confidence and hope that had been rising in her chest began to sink heavily into her stomach. There was no telling which of the desks was the one they needed. Blinking away the tears that stung the back of her throat, she took a less than self-assured step further into the room and turned on her heel to get a better look around the room.

She hadn't turned halfway around when she suddenly froze. Every muscle in her body seemed to clench in painful unison as the sight overtook her. It was not the sight before her that she saw, however, but one she had never actually seen, one that Tom Riddle had seen over a decade before when he had stood back to admire the wooden relic that he had just filled with a irreplaceable piece of himself.

Ginny Weasley took a gasping breath as the vision faded and the tension drained from her, leaving her staring at a simple yet intricately carved writing desk tucked reverently between two shelves of books on the history of Hogwarts and its founders.

She barely kept herself from racing across the room in her haste. This was what she'd been sent to find, this was what they needed, the next step to destroying the safeguard that Voldemort had placed to keep himself alive, and though the former Headmaster had not actually asked her to steal the desk, but only to determine if it was there, she couldn't simply leave. It was there, feet from her, and she simply couldn't bring herself to leave without it. She had to get to it, but first she had to find a way around the ward that encased it. Biting back a sigh, she examined the spells and allowed herself to relax. Apparently the latest Ethelward felt that the wards on his property and home were sufficient and had not used much more than rudimentary protective spells on the desk itself.

"_Abrogo_."

She watched with relieved satisfaction as the spells fell away and allowed her to run a fairly steady hand along the smooth wood before she shrunk the last remaining possession of Rowena Ravenclaw and placed it carefully in the special moke-skin bag she had used to transport Hufflepuff's cup. Neither wizard had known that she'd tucked the bag into her robes before she left, and she almost hadn't risked doing it, but she was glad she had, as it was possibly the only way she could have transported such a large object, even shrunk, especially considering the magic inherent in the object which could very well counteract some portion of her own spell. Inside the pouch, however, she had a much greater chance of getting it to her destination. She didn't let herself further consider the small possibility of something going wrong in transport, however. She had it, that was what mattered at the moment. That, and getting out of the estate with it.

Having the desk was not the same thing, after all, as handing it over to Moody and Dumbledore to be properly dealt with, so the redhead quickly retraced her steps. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, and there were a few moments when she thought she heard something that could have been the approach of the estate's owner, but after several tense minutes the redhead reached the room she had entered through and made her way to the bay window and carefully swung herself over the sill and floated to the ground below. Taking a moment to remove the covering of magical signature that had gotten her through the walls' wards, she dashed breathlessly across the lawns and stopped once more at the exterior wards.

It took her longer than she would have liked to reopen the hole in the mesh of spells that protected the estate, but eventually she was through and running almost invisibly to the glade where she had first arrived. Reaching the cool shade of the trees, Ginny couldn't keep the grin from spreading across her face as she took out her Portkey and reactivated it.

Author's Notes:

For anyone that is interested, the Latin translations of the new spells are as follows:

Dissimulo- to conceal, disguise, keep secret, to ignore, leave unnoticed

Patefacio- disclose, expose, make open

Escendo- ascend, go up, climb

Abrogo- to repel, annul, remove

End Chapter Nine


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten:

She struggled not to send Tonks a look of raw relief and gratitude as the Auror came into the dreary library at Number Twelve. The bright haired witch wouldn't know why she felt so glad to see her; as far as everyone else was concerned, she had been enthusiastically determined to get Hermione's help with an upcoming project for her Ancient Runes class. No one except Moody and Dumbledore knew that her scores in Runes were already at the top of her year and that her true intention in requesting the help was to keep Hermione occupied and unable to help the boys plan or scheme any kind of get away.

The need for her to separate and distract the Trio was ended by the older witch's arrival, however, and Ginny wasted little time in packing up her books and scrolls and leaving the bushy-haired Muggleborn to accompany Tonks to the back bedroom where they would meet Harry and Ron to review some of the complex defensive spells and hexes that she had taught them in their last session. Once the others had left, the youngest Weasley hastened to a meeting of her own, though she was careful to take the time to ensure that no one saw her head to the rooms currently occupied by the alleged head of the Order.

Her coconspirators had promised to inform her as to their progress in destroying the fifth Horcrux as soon as the pink-haired Order member had relieved her. She didn't intend to allow the two any extra time before they disclosed the full extent of their attempts. She half hoped that the only thing they would need to tell her when she arrived was the final spell that had proved successful in banishing the dark fragment of soul from the ancient artifact. Realistically, however, she knew that there was no way that they had managed to get through the complicated and complex web of shields and spells that had been cast on the desk both by the young Dark wizard that had defiled it, and the powerful witch that had originally owned it. From what she had been able to make out of the former Auror's brief description a few nights before when they'd stolen a couple minutes to talk about it, the task before them was still quite daunting.

It was certainly not the type of assessment she had hoped to hear. She'd wanted to have at least some reasonable possibility of reaching their goal before she had to return to school and her meetings with the other two would become less frequent. Considering, however, that the term would be restarting in a matter of days, that seemed highly unlikely.

It was more than frustrating.

Between acquiring the desk, and proving that she still may well contain more memories that could be of use, she had grown ever more sure that they could, and would, and must, soon take those last steps towards weakening the Dark Lord sufficiently to make his destruction possible. With her confidence freshly reinvigorated by her trip to Fittleborough, the proposition of waiting an unknown amount of time before they were able to crack the desk's defenses, and perhaps not even being involved in doing so, had been a painful blow to her re-inflated mood.

Ginny was trying very hard to maintain a positive outlook, though, and had thus far convinced herself that she was actually doing so. At least she had until she slipped into the wizards' quarters and caught the glimpse of pure frustration and the beginnings of desperation that was edging the voices of the ordinarily indomitable former Auror and Headmaster as they took turns retrying various spells to reach the blight beneath the magical shell surrounding Ravenclaw's desk.

"I believe it may prove more effective if we bypassed the protections entirely and tried to separate the physical pieces of the desk. Perhaps then it would be possible to pinpoint a weaker section of wood or magic on which to focus our efforts. _ Dilabor_."

"The damn thing is too solidly built for that. Ravenclaw would have had strengthening spells worked into it when it was made. We need to work on the shields. We can't get to what's underneath until we weaken or destroy the top layer of them. _ Altero_."

"Perhaps that would be a wise course, but a stronger approach would most likely be called for. _ Prosterno_."

"Bloody hell. Maybe so, the spells can't exactly protect a pile of ash, can they? _ Extermino_."

Albus Dumbledore sighed as the gleaming piece of furniture stood before them unscathed. "It would seem the object in question has no intention of testing that theory, Alastor."

The younger wizard let out a rather offensive sound of agreement.

"It would also seem that we have a visitor. Please come in Miss Weasley, make yourself comfortable. You'll excuse us, of course, while we take a brief respite from our trials?"

The sixth-year nodded slowly and did her best not to show any emotion as she watched the white-haired wizard wearily make his way into the adjoining room while his grizzled companion stomped through the door behind him. It was several seconds after they had left before she was able to pull herself out of the near-stupor she'd fallen into. It was difficult to process exactly what she had just seen.

Moody had been irate, and Dumbledore had been just plain tired. Granted, neither was exactly new, but the quality of their emotions had been much different than she had seen them, even at the height of their frustration in their search for this latest Horcrux. It was hard for her to believe that they were beginning to lose hope, but that was exactly what it looked like. They were so close, after all. Then again, that could very well be the problem.

They were so close, close enough to raise even hopes that had for so long been held low enough to avoid needless disappointment. And now, when half of their goal stood before them and refused to allow them to gain the next level, it was nearly too much to bear. It would appear that the others felt the same, but she refused to believe that they would never get past this obstacle. They had come so far, gotten so close. There was only one more Horcrux to find before the only part of his soul left to sustain him resided inside his inhumane frame. They would find it and they would destroy it, and Harry would fulfill the prophecy and destroy whatever was left of Tom once and for all.

But first they would destroy the soul part hiding within the beautiful relic standing so innocently in the dank sitting room she now knew so well. They would. They had to. If even one additional soul fragment remained intact, Voldemort would never truly die, and the Wizarding world would forever face its possible ruin. And that was something she would never allow to happen. She knew first hand what slithered in the recesses of Tom Riddle's shadowed thoughts and they were realities that the young redhead refused to see reach the light of day.

They would find a way. She would find a way.

_Godric help me, but your colleague's desk will not protect him any longer, or I am no Gryffindor_.

She had sent the thought as a declaration of intent, but it would seem it was taken as a plea, one that the spirit of her House's namesake saw fit to answer. His response took the form of bejeweled steel, which appeared before her without a sound. One minute she was fixing her most determined of gazes on the seemingly impenetrable antique, and the next she was unable to look away from the gilded sword resting at her feet.

The memory came, dim and unfocused, but distinctly her own. Harry had held that sword, used that sword, when he'd saved her from Tom's basilisk. It was Godric Gryffindor's sword, the only direct possession of one of the Founders that Riddle hadn't defiled; the only remaining Founder's artifact besides the desk itself. It was the only other item that would hold the Founders' magic and might therefore have the ability to counteract whatever spells Rowena Ravenclaw had placed on her desk. And if Voldemort had worked his own spells into hers, the destruction of one might mean the destruction of the other.

Ginny Weasley barely breathed as she leant down and picked up the sword, barely felt her heart as it sped suddenly in her chest when she lifted the weapon and paused ever so briefly before bringing it down with the whole of her strength. Blade met wood with a force she had never thought herself capable of producing. Magic clashed and fought, one Fonder against another, then an instant's silence passed, as though Godric and Rowena were locked in a mute staring contest.

Rowena looked away first.

The sword slashed through the invisible armor that had surrounded the relic-turned-Horcrux and came to rest against the still-gleaming wood of the desk. A wave of shock overtook her, followed swiftly by a feeling of extreme exhaustion that left her too busy trying to steady herself and catch her breath to think about the fact that the desk didn't retain even a single scratch from the encounter, or to speculate as to the consensus the Founders may have reached in the duration of their confrontation.

Silence rang loudly in her ears and she found her legs unsteady beneath her, forcing the witch to stumble back a step and lower the sword with shaking arms. The point of the blade sank just a little into the old carpeting as she used it to take some of her weight. As she struggled to keep her chin from falling forward onto her chest, the connecting door opened and she met the clear blue gaze as it widened and then focused with an expression of surprise.

It was another long moment before her vocal chords remembered how to work; a moment during which the second wizard stepped into the doorway and took in the unexpected sight.

She answered their unspoken question in a raspy voice. "He helped me."

In the days that followed, Ginny often replayed that last moment in her mind, remembering the confusion and then elated disbelief that had filled the wizards' faces at her statement, and the former Auror's response that had reached her ears before she had passed out from the effects of channeling the magic that had been needed to break the ancient wards.

"Then let's not let Gryffindor's help go to waste, girl. Let's finish the bloody bastard."

Author's Notes:

The new spells in this chapter are:

Dilabor- break up, scatter, dissolve, fall apart

Altero- destroy, waste, weaken

Prosterno- knock down, destroy, ruin

Extermino- burn down, set on fire

End Chapter Ten


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:

When Moody had said that they needed to "finish" Voldemort, she had been too drained from her role in taking care of the desk's wards to apply his comment to more than just the immediate task. The larger picture hadn't clarified for her until the Horcrux was located within the desk and destroyed, courtesy of the spell Dumbledore had perfected over the previous summer. The fact that her magical exhaustion had worn off by that point also helped. Even when she was still worn and tired, however, a clearer picture in her head of exactly where they were going had improved her mood. Knowing how close they had come to reaching their goals she had found it easier to bear the weeks that followed, during which she had seen the return of classes and the retreat of useful memories.

Still, even considering the lack of recent insights or revelations, she was optimistic. Tom would be defeated, his remaining Horcrux would be found and destroyed, and she would use the lingering taint of one of them in order to do so; even if it meant following a course of action that made little to no sense to her at the moment.

"But I thought you said a pensive wouldn't work?"

"Indeed I did. The use of a pensive to explore the memories you carry would be a rather pointless endeavor as their content would be disjointed and nearly entirely one-dimensional. For lack of a better term, they would be hollow, and therefore of no use to us."

Russet brows furrowed slightly under his gaze. "But why exactly?"

The former Headmaster fixed her with a tired but patient gaze. "Without the accompanying emotional imprints you experience and the insight gained from your previous encounters with the diary, Miss Weasley, I am afraid I would be able to make neither heads, nor tails, of the memories Tom left in your mind."

"But," she shook her head slightly in confusion, "pensives don't usually include emotions, do they? I mean, Harry didn't ever say anything to the others about being able to feel what you experienced in your memories."

"That is correct, but as these memories were not yours to start with, your subconscious magic would not fill in the gaps without his feelings and your other insights to complete the images when creating your pensive. In addition, your mind acts as a sort of pensive for the diary to start with, so in transferring it again to this one, some of the basic form would be lost."

Ginny nodded slightly, though traces of confusion still lingered on her features. "So why are we using a pensive if it won't work?"

"The pensive will not work on Tom's memories, but it is not those memories which we will be viewing tonight; it is mine," the elderly wizard intoned as he placed the tip of his wand to his temple and proceeded to draw a thin strand of silver memory from his own mind. Placing the strand into the bowl of the pensive, he sent the young witch an encouraging smile. "From our experience thus far it would seem that Tom's memories are often triggered by the sight or sound of similar or related information. I believe that I may be in possession of such a memory as would serve this purpose."

"Voldemort's snake, right? That's what you think holds the sixth Horcrux, isn't it?"

"That is my opinion, yes, but I would still like to have conformation of my hypothesis by a reliable source."

The look he sent her caused a sense of self-consciousness to rise in her chest. Having the most respected wizard of the age even indirectly say that he valued her opinion, that he trusted it as much as his own, even if it was because of the effect of Riddle's diary, was a bit of a shock to the system.

Not knowing exactly what to say in response, the youngest Weasley simply nodded and took a step towards the bowl. She hesitated before touching the iridescent surface, looking towards him in inquiry. He shook his head before she had a chance to ask the question forming on her lips.

"You may well make more useful observations without my being there to color your interpretations."

Nodding again, this time with a little less certainty, the redhead slowly lifted her arm and reached out, sucking in a breath as her fingers made contact and she was pulled into yet another foreign memory.

She had expected to find herself in the middle of an encounter with Death Eaters or Voldemort himself, had in fact prepared herself for such an experience, so it took her several moments to orient herself in the unexpected surroundings. Once she had taken in the brightly lit room, she realized where Dumbledore must have been when making this particular memory. Though she had never been to one herself, she recognized the description Harry had given to her brother when he had spoken of his trip with his relatives to the Muggle zoo. The scenery was remarkably similar to what Harry had talked about, mostly because it was the same place; perhaps not the same zoo, but certainly the same exhibit.

The reptile house.

Brown eyes blinked and cast about the gray landscape of glass enclosures, which she could see the white-haired man in front of her examining with poorly concealed fascination. He reminded her somewhat of her own father when faced with a new Muggle trinket, though she had to admit that Dumbledore was able to blend much more effectively with the Muggle crowd than Arthur Weasley could have ever managed to do. The one-time professor's taste in Muggle clothing was not what she was there to see, however, so she turned her attention to the matter at hand.

Since he'd thought that he knew something that would help her remember, she assumed that whatever that was would be something he knew he'd seen or heard and so focused on where the disguised wizard was headed. It took little concentration for her deduce exactly where he was going, or why he had chosen this memory for her to see. He was headed over to look at the snakes.

Ginny shook her head. She knew the Dark Lord's snake was the most likely Horcrux, she knew he wanted her to look at various snakes to see if maybe one of them might make her remember, but although she had known this before entering his memory, although she had come into it without question or hesitation, she doubted that it would do all that much good. She'd been thinking about snakes, picturing snakes, had even spent some time drawing various images of snakes in the hope of triggering something. It hadn't worked.

Yet she didn't leave her colorless location, but instead followed the black-and-white Dumbledore and proceeded to look carefully and intently at every slithery, scaly occupant of the unknown zoo. She continued to trail him for what felt like half an hour or so before she began to consider pulling herself from the elder wizard's memory. Still, she resisted the urge, knowing that if she left now, she would always wonder if she'd stayed, whether or not she could have seen or remembered something. So she stayed, and several minutes later, after they had rounded the tiled path a third time and started back through the exhibit, something caught her eye.

It wasn't so much the snake itself, as it was the aura that hung thick and rancid around its long body. It was a fairly average sized animal with the normal coloring and markings expected from its breed, but she could tell by the way the other patrons avoided approaching, or even looking at that one cage, that it was different from the others being housed around it. She knew it wasn't Tom's snake, she knew it was simply a regular snake that for whatever reason, had its own evil, but despite the lack of emotional imprint within the memory, a chill still skittered down her spine and she knew as the snake glanced casually in her direction that this was what her mentor wanted her to see.

If she had ever remembered standing before a mirror as Tom, she was sure that the sight that would greet her would be exactly what she saw in the once sparkling-eyed wizard's pensive. It was the snake's eyes that forced the air momentarily from her lungs and nearly caused her to stumble backwards as the other memory slammed into her.

It was little more than a flash, the image of a huge snake with cold, cold eyes standing before her as she glanced down at the Dark Mark she had traced in the air with her wand and made a series of hissing noises that created a transparent wall between herself and the reptile. As the foreign but familiar sight faded she was left with a sensation of loss and longing that overlay the resolve to do what she had to do, even if it meant leaving her closest confidant alone.

The emotions throbbed in her head, making it hard to catch her breath as the redhead yanked herself back to the present and woke to the sight of two worried faces hovering above her own.

"Miss Weasley, are you all right?"

She nodded, ignoring the stiffness in her neck and made herself focus on the more grizzled of the two wizards, wanting to say her piece without being interrupted by concerned questions. For all that they had developed something almost approaching a friendship in the past months, she knew Moody would ask for details first, and her condition second, which was exactly what she needed at the moment.

"He locked it up. He used some kind of a warding spell, but not one I've heard before; certainly not one he ever taught me. He cast it in Parseltongue so I don't know the incantation, but he worked the Dark Mark into the ward, I saw it as he was casting. I think it's supposed to key some kind of a lock or restrict entrance so that only someone with, or accompanying someone with, a Dark Mark can get in."

Neither wizard made any attempt at a response for several minutes, but simply sat and stared thoughtfully at her, at each other, or at nothing at all. Then, suddenly, Dumbledore broke the silence.

"There is no other way, Alastor. If such a restriction blocks Nagini's hiding place, then we have no other choice. He is our only way in."

The former Auror made a loud noise that sounded distinctly like a growl as he spun away from the older wizard and began pacing the room.

"It's a bad idea, Albus. It's dangerous and bloody stupid, and-"

Dumbledore raised his good hand, cutting the tirade off completely. The men's gazes locked and held until a silent decision was reached and the younger turned to Ginny with a dark scowl.

"Come on then, girl, it seems you've got somewhere to be."

End Chapter Eleven


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve:

Draco Malfoy felt his cheeks ache from the size of the grin he had been wearing for the last mile and a half, but didn't have the slightest inclination to drop the expression as he glanced behind him and noted the lead he had maintained for much of the race. The satisfaction he was feeling only increased when he looked forward once more and saw the finish line speeding towards him as his bike flew over the asphalt. When Aaron had proposed that they try their hands at motorbike racing, instead of the auto racing that they had been playing with the previous few weeks, he had thought it would be fun, but he hadn't thought it would be this much fun. Though it may not have been if their wealthy elitist tendencies hadn't led all four of them to buy the newest, fastest bikes on the market two weeks before.

The young wizard let out a whoop as he reached the Tonks' driveway and swung his bike in a wide arch, braking just before he would have collided with Carren, who had arrived moments after him. The shorthaired teen screeched to a halt and pulled his helmet off with a glare. Draco just grinned back, too exhilarated by the ride to even respond.

"You're a bloody speed demon, Draco," Blake shouted as he and Aaron came to equally sudden stops.

The ice-blond thought of the times he'd snuck out of the dungeons and flew through the inky pitch just to see how fast he could push his newest broom, and smirked in agreement. "And you ride slower than shite."

Aaron shook his head, laughing at his friend's response as the four young men piled into the house. Carren just rolled his eyes at the affronted expression on Blake's face as he headed into the kitchen to grab a few snacks as the others piled onto the couch and tuned the telly to the football game that had started a few minutes earlier.

Draco nodded in thanks at the short-haired daredevil as he brought an armful of less than healthy options into the room. The Malfoy heir rose to help him spread out the food and drink on the coffee table, wondering how it was that Coral always knew when to stock up on junk food. He didn't remember mentioning that his friends would be coming over to watch the game today, but he must have said something, as she usually didn't have quite so much unhealthy fare at the house. He made a mental note to thank her for the foresight as he opened a pop and joined the others in yelling rather enthusiastically at refs and players alike, completely unaware that the rowdy chorus was being carried out the open window and into the ears of the two people currently approaching the small home.

Ginny Weasley glanced questioningly at the former Auror as they stopped in front of the tidy two-story house, her brows furrowing slightly as the sound of several voices reached her. It reminded her of the Burrow when all her brothers were home and a Quidditch game was playing on the wizarding wireless. The sounds were somewhat loud in the otherwise quiet street and the redhead found herself even more confused than she had been a few minutes before. Neither wizard had seen fit to explain their destination to her before Moody had whisked her off. Nothing about the house seemed special or unusual to her, though she wasn't overly familiar with Muggle homes.

"Is this it?" Ginny asked as they continued to stand on the sidewalk. Her escort merely grunted and she was left to shift impatiently from one foot to the other as she waited to be told what they were doing and why exactly it had been so important that they did it. From Dumbledore's insistence that "he" was their "only way in", she had to assume that they had gone in search of someone to help them access the last Horcrux. The ward that Voldemort seemed to be placing in her memory was a formidable obstacle, and left them with few choices as to gaining access.

Logically, if she had been right about the type of ward, they had to be looking for someone who had, or knew someone who had, a Dark Mark, and yet was loyal enough to the Order to help them. The options were very slim. So slim, in fact, that Ginny could only think of one person who fit the criteria, though a nagging feeling in her gut told her that if they were meeting up with Professor Snape, she would not be needed.

"Where exactly are we?"

At first, Moody made no reply to the hesitant, almost apprehensive question, but after a moment he answered. "Garald and Coral Tonks' house."

The youngest Weasley let his words seep into her mind as she furiously examined the possible ramifications of that answer until she recalled the spell that had kept Harry safe with his aunt and uncle for so long. Surely that had nothing to do with them being here. Surely the relationship was too far removed to serve the purposes of that spell. But that didn't mean that particular spell was the only reason a familial relationship could be useful when looking for a place to hide someone. "Who are we meeting?"

Alastor Moody seemed to scowl even harder as he met her gaze. "Draco Malfoy."

The name confirmed the suspicions that had only begun to form and it was several seconds before she could get her thoughts into order and work out exactly what she was doing there. "You're not coming in, are you?"

Another grunt was her answer and she chose to overlook the main reason why she was being sent in his stead, not wanting to imply that he would be unable to behave professionally enough to get the younger wizard to help them. Certainly, the gruff man would be little help in even the semi-diplomatic mission they were currently on. She was the most logical choice of the two of them, since Dumbledore could not leave the former Auror's rooms, yet even knowing this, it took her a moment to set aside her own prejudices and calm her nerves enough to set about what she knew she had to do.

"It sounds like he has company," she said in a tone of forced calm.

Whatever she had thought of Malfoy the last few years they had gone to school together, the mere fact that he was hiding with his somewhat distant Muggle relatives and not with his parents and the Death Eaters proved that she was at least a little wrong in her assumptions. It was hard to believe that she had been so far off on her assessment of the Slytherin, however, that he would be a willing participant in the source of the raucous noise currently being emitted from the house in front of her. The sounds were those characteristic of the boys she had spent much of her time with, but seemed entirely too cheery for the perpetually sulky and bitter image of Draco Malfoy she had formed over the years.

Whatever he might or might not be doing inside the house, however, it didn't change the fact that she needed to go inside, to talk to him. They needed his help to have any chance of getting past the ward that Tom had erected to guard Nagini, and her standing out here on the sidewalk looking at the house was not going to get them that help. She had to go in.

"I guess it's time to break up the party."

She didn't wait for the grizzled wizard to reply to her muttered words, a part of her vaguely

noting that he had made another grunt before heading silently back to the alley to Disapparate as she took a deep breath and made her way to the door.

The few moments it took for someone to answer her knock passed slowly for the redhead as she tried to mentally formulate an argument that she thought the Malfoy heir might allow to persuade him to cooperate. She hadn't even decided on an appropriate introduction, however, when the door before her opened to reveal a dark-haired Muggle about her age, maybe a little older. The teen shot her a wide grin that was more than a touch appreciative as he looked her up and down.

"How can I help you?"

Ginny swallowed past the urge to tell him exactly what he couldn't help her with as he continued to stare. "I'm here to see Draco."

There was a subtle flash of disappointment on his face that he didn't even try to hide as he turned and hollered over his shoulder at the crowd of his friends that were still yelling at the television.

"Dray, visitor."

A distracted voice she recognized from countless insults reached her from the other room. "What's that? Kick the ball in the bloody goal not the stands ya arse!"

"Visitor. For you," the brunette told his friend in a much louder voice, this time managing to penetrate the surrounding cacophony.

Draco spent all of half a second processing the first word and running through a few possibilities as to who could be here to see him before coming up with a scenario that included him and all his friends on the floor under Cruciatus. The fact that his visitor had knocked politely at the door rather than bursting in, wand drawn, however, implied a less than nefarious intent, but he still had to fight to hide the sudden tension in his shoulders and the battle-ready look in his eyes as he stood swiftly from the couch and prepared to activate the charm hiding his wand in his watchband.

Even poised to encounter any number of Muggle or Death Eater acquaintances that might be at the door, he felt a second's shock as he took in the person waiting for him.

"Weasley."

The name was stated almost hollowly and without any kind of inflection that might indicate the tone of her reception, so she decided to be as neutral as possible in her own greeting as she nodded at the ice-blond. "Malfoy."

They stared at each other in silence for several seconds, earning them a strange look from Aaron as the dark-haired teen glanced between them. "What, not going to introduce us, mate?"

The question brought Draco out of his stupor, and he turned almost reluctantly to his friend, as if afraid to take his eyes off her for even a moment before turning back to stare somewhat suspiciously at his unexpected visitor.

"Aaron, this is Weasley, Weasley, Aaron, Carren, and Blake" he said blandly, gesturing to each in turn as the other two filtered in rather curiously.

"Ginny," she corrected, forcing a smile through her nerves and shaking hands with the Muggles as if she wasn't standing on the threshold of an apparently allied Death Eater's hide-out. "My name's Ginny."

"Well 'ello there, Ginny," Aaron stated with a leer.

"Nice to meet you," said Carren.

"That it is. What is it that we can do for you?" asked Blake with a snobby expression that left little doubt in the redhead's mind what he and Draco had in common.

"I need to speak with Draco actually."

"Really?" drawled the sandy-blond with a slight sneer. "Why exactly would you want to do that?"

The youngest Weasley glanced over at the wizard, half expecting a vicious retort to the insult, the redhead surprised when all the snake did was roll his eyes at the other boy and fix her with a look that asked much the same question.

"We went to school together," she said when nothing better came to mind.

"Bit early for a class reunion, isn't it, Weaslette?"

She shot him a chilly glare, and though the hated name had been delivered with less venom than it ever had before, Ginny replied rather caustically just so that he knew she wouldn't simply let him insult her as she had so many times in the past.

"Not according to Fawkes," she replied, hoping that he understood the reference to the Order.

Being a Slytherin, however, he had little trouble interpreting her use of the phoenix's name, and only hopped she understood his own message as he crossed his arms and placed his right palm over his left forearm just below the bend of his elbow in a subtle reminder of the danger of someone from Hogwarts coming to visit him. "I suppose he would be appropriately conscious of his timing here."

"He would," she said seriously, doing her best to confer the precautions she had taken in coming and the necessity of doing so.

The three other teens looked back and forth between the two, various expressions of curiosity and confusion clouding their eyes as they listened to the almost cryptic exchange. None knew quite what to make of the appearance of the girl, or their friend's reaction to her, but it was obvious to all of them that something was going on and the latent tension hanging heavily around them gave the impression it was something that the two should probably discuss themselves.

"Well," the other blond said, drawing out the word in an illustration of his confusion.

"Now that that's settled, we should get back to the telly before we miss our game, right mates?" Carren asked, giving his other friends a meaningful glance as he led the way back to the couch. "Nice to meet you, Ginny."

She nodded as she watched the three leave, shaking her head at the grin Aaron shot her over his shoulder before returning her full attention to the wizard. He returned her stare for several seconds before stepping back and gesturing for her to come into the house. "We can talk in my room."

End Chapter Twelve


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen:

She followed him without a word as they made their way down the hall and up the stairs. The silence continued when they entered the room, the blond shutting the door behind them and nodding to the chair at the small desk several feet away as he took a seat on the end of the neatly made bed. Even after they both got comfortable, silence reigned, and she found herself glancing around the small room, taking in the posters on the walls, showing everything from some people riding the kind of bikes that were parked out front, to a guy in a strange white outfit poised mid-kick, to what she thought might be some kind of Muggle sport that required a black and white checkered ball.

It all looked so very Muggle that she had a hard time understanding what either of them were doing there. Still, there was a very good reason she had come, and with that in mind, the youngest Weasley finally gathered her vaunted Gryffindor courage and spoke.

"Dumbledore sent me."

The blond nodded. "I'm guessing it wasn't to let me know it's all over and I can come out of hiding."

He didn't wait for her to respond, or for himself to examine whether he was more disappointed, frustrated, or relieved by the fact that he would be staying with the Tonks a while longer.

"So why exactly did he send you?"

The question, which she would have expected to be laden with disdain and annoyance, was stated rather blandly, and she took a moment to run her eyes over the young man in front of her. She was somewhat surprised by the soft tangles of his hair that hung in his face, and the lack of a sneer on his lips. The dark denim pants he was wearing were somewhat shocking in their casualness and outright Muggle quality. She was a little confused as to why the word 'corn' was misspelled and placed with such prominence on his shirt, though. In lieu of asking about that, she refocused her thoughts on the reason she was there and took a deep breath.

"We've been tracking down the Horcruxes," she paused, and he nodded to show he knew what she was talking about. She nodded in turn, glad that she wouldn't have to explain that part of it, though she spared a second to wonder when the former Headmaster had found the time or place to tell him about it.

"Well the one we're looking for now is apparently protected by a kind of warding spell that blocks entrance to all but those with, or in the company of, a Dark Mark, and-"

He sucked in a barely audible breath and resisted the urge to place his hand back over the blemish on his left arm, instead nodding again with as much calm as he could summon and finished for her. "And I was the only one with the bloody thing that there was a possibility of you all being able to trust."

He waited for the young Gryffindor to make some noble insistence that he was trusted or some other such tripe, but she merely nodded.

"Well, obviously your lot knows where I am and could easily make that information common knowledge, so I don't exactly see why you felt it necessary to come all the way here to let me know I would be helping in this little suicide mission. Honestly, couldn't you have just sent a letter in the post or something instead of invading my life?" he asked, any protective tone which might have shown through his last words covered pretty well with annoyance.

Red hair skittered across her thin shoulders with a shake of her head and brown eyes rolled as she took in his expression with a little more insight than made him comfortable. "First of all, I didn't know where you were until Moody told me it was you we were here to meet, which by the way, was after we'd gotten here. Secondly, I didn't come to tell you you'd be going, I came to ask if you'd get me through the ward so I could get at the damn thing. Third, it's not a suicide mission, it has every chance not only of success, but of survival."

She swallowed the urge to detail her previous successes, not wanting to tell someone she had yet to trust, exactly how many Horcruxes they had stolen and destroyed since the beginning of her sixth year. For his part, he didn't indicate any disappointment in her lack of running at the mouth that could have satisfied his curiosity, instead rolling slate grey eyes as she continued.

"And lastly," she said, her tone losing some of her anger even as she hid the questions that had formed at his reluctance to have her there which seemed to surpass the concern he had for his safety. "an owl or Floo call would not only draw attention to what should be a strictly Muggle residence, but would be too easily intercepted."

He shook his head in exasperation. "Well of course it would. I was talking about Muggle post."

Ginny shrugged. "Maybe Dumbledore figured you'd be more receptive and less likely to brush off me than a letter."

He raised a single pale brow and let out a snort that somehow managed to come across almost dignified. "Perhaps, a person is harder to fit in the rubbish bin; but I still find it interesting that it was you they chose to send, though really, it was smart of them not to try Potter."

He caught the flicker of reaction in her eyes at the mention of the boy-wonder, and felt a smirk twist his lips. "So Potter's not quite in the loop on this one, is he? But you are?"

Draco waited for a moment, watching her closely for any response, but she remained steadfastly mute and surprisingly guarded, so he simply moved on, going back to the original topic. "Now that I think about it, even Muggle post would be more risky, what with you needing somewhere to receive a reply, and therefore a post office you could access without arousing suspicions. Much better for just you to be involved instead of a whole slew of postal employees."

She kept staring at him silently for several moments after he had finished speaking, though the blankness of her expression had taken on a shade of consideration. If she wasn't so busy reshaping a part of her view of the pure-blood snob to include a surprising knowledge of Muggle communication methods, she would have noticed the suppressed tick on his face as she eyed him up and down.

Instead, she was once again taking in the casual but good quality Muggle attire and picturing the interaction she had seen downstairs with what she could only guess were his friends, though she had hardly seen him with anyone at school that could fit into more than the lackie or acquaintance category. It made her readjusted image somewhat disjointed and more than a little difficult to wrap her head around, especially when considered next to what so many had always assumed to be the ironclad destiny of the Slytherin prince.

At that thought, her mind automatically conjured a set of black robes and a silver mask, but before she could process the ill fitting match between the vicious Death Eater in her mind's eye and the uncomfortable teen across from her, she felt everything take on a grey tinge as the world dipped and twisted around her. Reality spun and whirled until she was the one in the stomach churning ensemble, and her own sibilant voice was hissing in her ear as the wand in her hand etched runes in the still air of the cave.

Draco, so recently the focus of a silent inspection found himself switching roles with the young witch as the blood began to leave her face and her eyes clouded over in a way that told him she was no longer looking at him. The blond watched for a second as she sat completely still, then started to tilt in her seat as the pale cast to her skin turned even whiter and he wondered if she was going to pass out. Standing, he cautiously covered the few feet between them.

"Weasley, you okay? Weasley? Ginny?" She made no response, but her eyes became a little less cloudy, even as the expression in them grew distant, but before he could consider doing anything, her eyes cleared and she tried to stand a little too quickly. The results of her efforts prompted him to reach out, steadying her with one hand as his eyes fixed on her still chalky face.

The memory snapped out of existence as Ginny felt the hand grab her elbow, making her suddenly aware of the fact that she was swaying on her unsteady legs.

"Thanks," she said in a quiet, but still trembling voice as he helped her sit back down in the chair she hadn't realized she'd even left.

It was always a little disconcerting to come back to herself after recovering a memory, but for some reason, she felt especially out of it at the moment. Maybe it was because she had used so much of her magical energy Apparating from place to place behind Moody to disguise their trail as they made their way to see Malfoy. Whatever the reason, she needed a minute to let the dizziness subside before she left, which she most certainly had to do. She had to tell the others that there was more than just a ward requiring a Dark Mark, there was also one preventing any use of magic within the confines of the cave. It was a more than slightly daunting discovery as every mission she had yet been sent on had owed its success to her use of the spells and charms she had learned from Riddle, which were completely useless in this case. How were they going to get to the snake without using magic? None of them were anywhere near proficient in much of anything that could be called non-magical, or Muggle-

Her gaze, much sharper than he had expected it to be given her state moments before, rose unexpectedly to pin him where he stood, bent over with his hand still on her elbow. "You live without magic here, you know how to do things without magic."

It was all stated so matter-of-factly, yet with an edge of calculated consideration the Slytherin never would have considered the Gryffindor capable of. While he was busy contemplating that, however, she was watching him, and the expression that filtered across his face at her words.

She wasn't quite sure if he looked more offended, or embarrassed, or perhaps, was that a flash of stubborn pride? Whichever it was, it lent another new shade to her shifting image of Draco Malfoy, though as interesting as that was, it wasn't nearly as important as the idea forming in her head as she stared at him.

"You have the Mark, we know that," she went on a little abruptly, causing his eyes to refocus on her face as he grew tense under her gaze. "We need the Mark, we know that too. But we also need to be able to operate without magic once we get past the wards, and you have the ability to do that too, or at least you know more about it than the rest of us, which leaves you as pretty much the only person who can not only get me into the cave, but through it..."

Shaking his head, Draco stepped back from the witch, running a hand through his hair. "Wait, wait. Since when can you not use magic? You didn't mention that before. And who said you were going wherever? I thought you were here to 'ask' me to help Moody?"

She gave no response to his questions other than a silent stare, but he noticed that the guarded expression was back in her eyes. Eventually she looked away, then back again with a less stoic caste to her features.

"All of the Horcruxes must be taken and destroyed before we have even a hope of defeating him, and we can't do that without getting around the wards and through the cave. You have the Mark to get past the first, and may well have the knowledge to get us around the second. You are our best chance of getting this Horcrux, Draco; we both know that. What I want to know is if you are willing to do it."

He returned her intense gaze, neither faltering as the seconds ticked by, neither moving or speaking until he broke eye contact and turned to face the small window. "Death Eaters are arrogant, hateful, and no one who would even consider getting a Dark Mark would stoop low enough to use Muggle methods for anything. Doing something without magic would not even occur to them."

"You're not a Death Eater."

He spun on his heel, unreadable grey eyes meeting hers once more.

"You may have their Mark, but you're not one of them."

This time he didn't break eye contact. "I'm not exactly one of you either."

"No, but you'll help us, won't you? You'll help me."

Silence hung stiff and heavy with expectation for several long moments. Then it was broken as his voice filled it.

"Yes, I'll help you. Damn it."

End Chapter Thirteen


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen:

The map swam back into focus as the memory faded into the background and she lifted shaking hands to her head.

"You all right Weasley?"

The half-hearted, grunted moan of agreement that she managed was less than convincing.

"Weasley?"

A deep breath and a large dose of determination allowed her to actually speak, but her shaky, "head hurts," didn't exactly reassure the blond as he stood wearily in front of the couch, watching her for a moment to make sure she wasn't going to fall over before he left the room.

When he returned, she was pressing her fingers into her temples with so much force it looked like she was trying to literally dig out the pain. He shook his head as he sat down next to her, waiting until she looked up to hand her the pills he'd gotten from the kitchen. She looked at them silently for several seconds and he could almost see her remembering the conversation they had had several days before when she'd seen him taking the asprin and had wondered what he was doing. A speck of irritation colored his eyes and he moved his hand closer to her, silently urging her to just take them already. Eventually she did exactly that, flashing him a wilted smile in either apology for her reticence, or thanks for the pills.

He watched her silently as she swallowed the asprin and set back down the glass of pop she had gotten herself almost an hour earlier. He allowed her to lean against the back of the couch with a sigh before meeting her eyes. "What's going on, Weasley?"

Ginny let her eyes fall shut and gently rubbed at her aching head. She'd known this conversation was coming the moment Dumbledore had told her she would be staying at the Tonks' while she and Malfoy worked out a way to get to Nagini without using magic. Even if she didn't regain any more memories, she would have to explain why she would be the one going with him to the cave. And while she had hoped to remember something else that would help them, she had hoped that it would be after they had been working together a bit longer and she had been able to work up the courage to tell him. That was obviously not to be, though, and it was now time to spill it all.

She took a deep breath as she opened her eyes, but as she raised her head and looked at him, she was suddenly reminded of all the hours they had spent pouring over books and maps at the Muggle library and in this very room over the last week as they sought every scrap of information about caves. He hadn't really known why they were doing so, hadn't known they were in fact trying to trigger a memory that might tell them about the cave that was hiding their quarry, but he'd been surprisingly cooperative about it anyway, accepting the excuse that they had somehow obtained a description of the hide-out and that they were looking for a matching cave system. Maybe he'd assumed the information had come from Snape, but he'd asked few questions. At least until now.

She let out the breath she'd been holding, telling herself that he should know, that she needed to tell him, and ignoring the lilting question in her head that asked how he'd react when he found out. The last week had been going so well she had started to think that she might actually enjoy her time with Malfoy and the Tonks' and the thought that her tainted mind might put an end to that was a less than pleasant one.

"Ginny?"

It wasn't so much the almost annoyed tone to his voice that snapped her from her thoughts, it wasn't even the use of her first name; it was the slightest hint of concern on his face as he stared at her that made her swallow her nerves and locate her voice.

"I don't know how much you know about my first year and the opening of the Chamber of Secrets," she glanced over at him as if in question, and though he didn't say anything, the stiffening of his shoulders told her his father had mentioned something. "Anyway, when I used Riddle's diary, it let him inside me, and well, he never exactly left; at least some part of him didn't. I can remember some things, things he knew, things he did. We think little bits of his memories buried themselves in my subconscious when the diary was destroyed. I don't know how much is there, and it's hard to access the memories, but I've been able to trigger some, have been able to remember things about the Horcruxes that have let us find and take them."

Grey eyes narrowed, remained fixed on her tightly shuttered eyes as she looked anywhere but at him. "That's why they let you in on it all."

Ginny glanced down at her lap. "Actually, I kind of stumbled into it. I heard Ron and Hermione and Harry talking about going after the Horcruxes and I knew they were going to the wrong place, that they'd get hurt, so I went to Moody to have him stop them. I, well, I snuck into his rooms and found Dumbledore with him."

"You snuck into Alastor Moody's rooms?" The incredulous tone left an almost proud warmth in her stomach, but the only thing that showed on her face was the embarrassment, and a hint of shame as she responded.

"When he made me sneak around the castle, well, I got good at it, even when he wasn't controlling me."

He nodded, but she could see the edge of discomfort in his eyes when she glanced up at his words. "You used those spells to get the other Horcruxes, didn't you?"

She nodded and he smirked the slightest bit. "Rather fitting, if you think about it."

"Moody liked the irony almost as much as the strategic advantage." She tried to smile as she said it, but her efforts fell short and she only grimaced and looked away from him.

Silence fell between them for several seconds, and she still refused to look in his direction, leaving her unaware of the emotions flickering across his face as he continued to stare at the witch he had just started getting to know. He'd had little to no contact with her at Hogwarts, aside from the occasional insult, and the past months with the Tonks' had left him in a very different position to look at the slight redhead when she'd come to see him. The first few days it had almost been hard to stay completely civil with her, especially when she dodged his questions, but now he could admit, if only to himself, that she wasn't that bad to work with. And now, perhaps, he knew why. She had some Slytherin in her.

"So," he stated calmly, breaking the silence and bringing the conversation back to the beginning. "That was what just happened? You remembered something?"

The youngest Weasley nodded, but didn't say anything and he fought a sigh of frustration. "That's what happened before, too, isn't it? When you first came and suddenly knew there was a ward against using magic?"

Another nod and a few moments passed before he spoke again, this time a little quieter. "Is it always painful? I mean, you looked like you were going to pass out just now. And before, you got all dizzy and real pale."

Her answer was just as quiet, and a little more hesitant. "It's disconcerting, remembering things I never knew, and I usually have a headache after. Sometimes it's worse than other times."

"Maybe some memories are buried deeper than others, and take more effort to access; and finding something that shouldn't be there in the first place probably isn't all that easy for your mind to process."

For the first time since she'd found herself standing outside the cave in her mind instead of looking at pictures of similar places in the Tonks' living room, she met his gaze, her own filled with a surprised, and grateful understanding. "I never thought about it that way. It makes so much sense."

She trailed off, but he could hear the relief in her voice and he knew how much not understanding what was happening in her head bothered her. The fact that he had taken away a little of that doubt, that fear, made him strangely satisfied and he had to think about something else before he could examine it too closely.

"What did you remember?"

Brown eyes darted away and refocused uneasily on her own hands. "The cave. The one Nagini's in."

End Chapter Fourteen


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen:

"Nagini? He's a Horcrux? We're going after the Dark Lord's pet?"

She blushed the slightest bit at his incredulous questions, having forgotten that he still didn't know exactly which Horcrux they were looking for.

"Just out of curiosity," he asked with a slightly harsh tone, "exactly how many of the Horcruxes have you all destroyed so far that we're going after one that is almost always with the Dark Lord himself?"

"Um, Harry took care of the diary his second year, Dumbledore found Marvolo's ring before your sixth year. Regulus Black actually stole and destroyed Slytherin's necklace years ago, and well, we got Hufflepuff's cup a couple months ago, and Ravenclaw's desk after Christmas."

"Five?" The word came out somewhat incredulous, and she couldn't decide if she was proud or insulted because he thought it so surprising that she and the others had taken and destroyed so many already. "So we're after the last, aside from the sodder himself."

She nodded and he shook his head, choosing to ignore the sense of responsibility, and the hint of pride that he was being trusted with it, and instead went back to the memory Weasley had apparently just recovered.

"So, uh, this cave?"

Ginny nodded, though she swallowed perceptively before she reached for the map she had been holding when the vision had taken hold. Shifting on the couch to allow him to see it, the redhead tried her best to organize the recovered memory into a coherent description.

"The entire system is like a large maze, large enough that the Death Eaters could have set themselves up at the far end. Even if they are there, they obviously wouldn't be going into an area that prohibits magic, so as long as we're fairly quiet, it shouldn't pose a problem. Besides, if they're triggered, the wards will let Voldemort know we're there no matter how far away he is at the time," Ginny said with a small shake of her head.

The blond nodded. "True enough, but it's more likely that there is a camp at the other end of the system; the Dark Lord has always kept his pet close to him in the past. Even if the wards against magic use don't extend to the opposite end of the cave system, they probably cover Nagini's end completely, and most likely continue a ways out past the entrance."

"I would agree, he'd have made the wards as far reaching as he could without interfering with any camp they might have in the area, which makes it a little more difficult for us to get into the cave where Nagini's hidden. The only entrance I saw at that end was a really deep hole in the ground that led to a tunnel. Tom used magic to levitate down before he set the wards, but obviously we can't do that."

The wizard silently conceded that argument, and with a wave of his hand, indicated for her to continue.

"Our first problem, however, is going to be getting to the caves in the first place. I'm not sure how far from the entrance the wards extend, and we can't risk Apparating or Port-Keying in not knowing the scope of the ward. To make it harder, it's pretty isolated."

Draco eyed the paper in her hands, noting the location of the cave system and mentally calculating how best to get there when the time came. "There don't appear to be many roads in the vicinity, but we could probably fly in pretty easily."

"But where would we land? If we don't know how far the wards go, we can't be certain how close to get. Even without using our wands, operating a broom uses magic, and..."

Draco shook his head with a laugh, and the Gryffindor fought not to raise her hackles. His expression wasn't exactly mocking, but memories of previous encounters with him made the reaction nearly automatic.

"Not on brooms, Weasley. I meant we'd fly in an airplane. There's no landing strip, but it would probably be best not to land anyway; it would draw too much attention if there are any Death Eaters in the area."

Putting aside any urge to snap, or reply defensively, to his laughter, she did her best to respond calmly, though she was unable to hide her underlying confusion. She'd seen several images of airplanes over the last week, especially on the picture box he liked to watch so much. And she'd even seen one in the sky her first day with the Tonks, but the rest of his answer alluded her.

"How do we get out of the airplane if it doesn't land?"

"We jump."

Brown eyes widened almost comically, drawing another chuckle from the blond. "Jump?"

"Yeah. Muggles have these things called parachutes that slow you down so you can land. I've not done it yet, but Aaron and the guys have lots of times. They can set us up with lessons, even loan us their gear. It'll be perfectly safe once we know what we're doing."

"You want us to jump out of the sky, without a broom or anything?"

He shook his head again, and couldn't keep from laughing again at the scared look on her face. "It'll be fine, I'll call the guys later about lessons. For now we should try to figure out how we're going to get in the cave once we're on the ground."

"And how exactly are we going to get out?" She tried to keep the challenging tone out of her voice, but she was well aware that she didn't exactly succeed. "If the plane can't land to drop us off, how is it going to pick us up?"

Draco shrugged with infuriating casualty. "I'll figure it out."

"You mean you don't know?" The redhead popped out of her seat and began to pace. "We can't go in without some sort of exit strategy. If we have to use magic, they'll know we were there and they'll figure out what we did and then they'll have time to get on the defensive. We need to do this as unobtrusively as possible so we can attack before Voldemort realizes we've neutralized his Horcruxes."

Her voice had risen in both pitch and volume as she spoke, leaving the wizard with rapidly thinning patience.

"Weasley." The word brought her attention away from her fearful preoccupation and the sharpness of his tone made her round eyes narrow in his direction.

"Malfoy." His own eyes narrowed the slightest bit at her caustic reply but he ignored it and instead looked down at the map, reaching out to poke somewhat irritably at the image of the cave system.

"The entrance. We have to decide how we're going to get down the shaft."

"The exit," she intoned with vehement, but subdued insistence.

Draco let out a rather explosive sigh. "I'll figure it out"

He held up a hand imperiously before she could respond. "All we need is the right trainer with the right background to get us access to the right equipment. The guys can help with that, but until I have that, and know exactly what we can get and when, I won't know what options we have to choose from. It may take a little while, but once we have that, I can arrange for an appropriate exit. I'm not likely to forget about it, so just calm down and give me some time to work it out."

Ginny took a deep breath and forced herself to nod and take her seat once more. What calm she managed to obtain, however, didn't last very long when faced with his suggestion as to how they could get into the cave itself.

"First you want me to jump out of an airplane, and now you want me to jump off a cliff?"

Draco gritted his teeth against the outraged, and scared, words the witch threw at him. "We wouldn't be jumping, we'd be rappelling, and it's not a cliff, it's a shaft."

"What's the bloody difference?"

"We'd have a rope attached to us that would help us rappel down slowly and would be firmly anchored above the shaft entrance. It's perfectly safe, and pretty easy to do, so stop screeching at me."

Ginny clenched her jaw shut against the words that wanted to come out, the redhead watching her partner throw his arms into the air and stand from the couch in a huff. Once she had gotten herself moderately under control, she regarded him as calmly as she could.

"I'm sorry," she said with as little sarcasm as possible, "if I find the idea a little unsettling. This isn't exactly something I have a lot of experience with."

The wizard let out a loud sigh and ran his hands through his hair a few times before turning to face her. "Look, you said yourself that you don't know how far the ward against magic goes, and if we want any chance of getting in, we have to err on the side of caution and do everything the Muggle way. And the reason you're here is because I know how to go about doing that, so however it sounds, whatever you think about it, you've got to believe that I know what I'm talking about. I'm going with you, remember; I'm not going to pick something that is going to get me killed."

The redhead took a deep breath. Everything he said was true. He was the Muggle expert, strange as it sounded, and she needed his advice about how to get around the ward. Needing his advice, and taking it, however, were two very different things. After all the trouble and torment he had caused her and her family at Hogwarts, it was hard to trust him, especially to such a degree as this mission required. But it wasn't at all like a Malfoy to put himself in danger, though it wouldn't surprise her if he were picking things that sounded dangerous just to scare her. Even so, the mission was still more important than her sense of ease or comfort. If they didn't take care of Nagini, Harry and the Order would have no chance of defeating Voldemort, and that was more important than any lingering distrust of Draco Malfoy.

"All right. So you know what you're talking about when it comes to Muggle stuff." She couldn't quite hide the less than confident tone, and it brought a less than patient sigh from her companion.

"Yes, I do. And I know that parachuting and rappelling are our best shots at getting to the cave. And I know that even if we don't have an exact exit strategy yet, we will be able to plan one soon enough."

This time it was the witch who sighed as she once again acknowledged that she was going to have to trust his judgment in this matter. His ideas still made her uncomfortable, but she refrained from saying so, instead reaching up a hand to rub wearily at the headache that was still throbbing in her temples. The first few hours after regaining a memory were never pleasant, especially when they were spent arguing with a Malfoy.

The motion caught his attention, and grey eyes couldn't help narrowing as he pictured her reaction to the map they now knew depicted Nagini's hiding place. Even being annoyed with her as much as he was, the memory of her pale, slightly green face, her distant brown eyes, her shaking limbs, and her groan of pain as she snapped out of it, left him feeling slightly off center.

When he'd seen her have the reaction in his room after she'd first arrived, he had been unsettled, and perhaps even the slightest bit concerned. And then, when it had happened again, less than two hours before, he had felt much the same way. Yet now, knowing it was because she had accessed one of the Dark Lord's memories, actually seen what he had seen, it left an even more noticeably sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had met the Dark wizard, and he didn't want to even speculate as to what his memories contained. He certainly didn't want to speculate as to what she had seen or felt, or how sickening, how frightening it must feel to glimpse his thoughts or...

Draco shook his head. He didn't feel sorry for Ginny Weasley. She was a necessary evil to endure in order to destroy the last Horcrux, bring them closer to destroying the Dark Lord, and bring himself closer to having his old life back. His life away from the Tonks' and martial arts, and Aaron, Blake, and Carren, and pop and delivery pizza, and...

Now was not the time for pointless blathering, even if only in his head. If they were to have any chance at success, they needed to get to work. She needed to learn to repel down a shaft, and probably climb back up it, and they both needed to learn how to safely parachute out of a moving plane. Aaron and the others could handle that just fine he was sure, but they'd have to schedule some time with the plane and the rest of the equipment they would need. That was easily enough arranged, but as he reached for the phone to call his friends, he caught sight, once again, of the youngest Weasley rubbing her temples with a look of exhaustion on her freckled face.

"Why don't you go to bed, we've been at this long enough for tonight."

Brown eyes rose slowly to meet grey, a mix of relief and suspicion in her gaze. "You sure?"

"Of course I'm bloody sure." Draco took a deep breath before he finished that statement the way he wanted to. "I'm going to go to sleep in a minute myself, just as soon as I give the guys a call and set things up for tomorrow."

It was probably a measure of how much her head hurt that she didn't question him any further, but instead merely made her way up to the room she had been assigned for her stay. It was probably a measure of how much her involvement was required for a successful outcome that he watched her slowly ascend the stairs before he once again reached for the telephone.

End Chapter Fifteen


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen:

Ginny took a deep breath as she stood on the edge of the mock cliff and leaned back in preparation for her descent. She made sure her hands were in exactly the position Aaron had told her to hold them. Her right hand was clenched tightly but carefully around the rope that extended all the way to the ground behind her, holding in against her thigh to keep it tight against the D-ring in her harness. Her left was lightly clasping the rope, preparing to guide herself as she stepped backwards off the edge. Cautiously she took another two steps and with a deep breath, kicked lightly off, loosening her right hand as she fell about ten meters. A quick glance to her right assured that she was almost in time with her partner as she shifted her right hand once more and slowed her fall.

The redhead forced her breathing to remain calm and tightened her legs as she swung towards the faux rock face and kicked off lightly once more, releasing her right hand and falling another twenty meters. Anticipating the approach of the ground beneath her, she tightened her right hand again, but only enough to slow her fall for the final thirty meters as she kicked off the wall again. Her heart was beating slightly faster than normal as she landed on her feet a second or two after Draco, and she unhooked the rope from her harness with nearly steady hands.

It was the third straight day they had spent practicing their controlled fall, a fairly short amount of time, in her mind, considering the progress she had made. It had actually taken longer for them to match their pace than it had for her to learn the mechanics of rappelling, but it was important that they entered the cave as one so that his Mark could allow them both entrance past the warding.

Even with that extra time, however, they had reached adequate proficiency much quicker than she had anticipated. That was not to say that they were done with their lessons. Neither Draco, nor his brunette friend, were satisfied with the speed or ease of their tandem descent. They would probably end up practicing rappelling the nearly sixty meter drop for another few days before they declared both of them ready to tackle the next step. After all, once they had gotten down the shaft into the cave, they would need to come back up again.

She was reasonably confident of her ability to properly ascend the mock cliff they had been practicing on, it looked easier than repelling, especially when the strange little machine Blake had shown them would be doing most of the work. Her confidence only grew as the sandy-blond Muggle showed her and Draco how to operate the small winch two days later. Her hands barely even shook as she stood at the bottom of the wall of fake rock and hocked the rope into her D-ring for what felt like, and probably was, the thousandth time that week.

She spared a quick but not too terribly nervous peek at Draco as he did the same, and aimed the small remote at the winch above her head. As soon as she pressed the right button, the witch felt the small machine tug at the rope, taking up the slack until she was forced to take a step closer to the wall, and then one onto it. It was a strange, but by now familiar feeling, to basically walk vertically, though this time it was up the wall instead of down it. Whichever direction it was in, it was just familiar enough that by now it took little conscious effort to adjust her stance and position herself correctly in the harness as she ascended.

Hoisting herself the last foot or so over the edge was a bit more difficult, but countless hours of practice throwing a Quaffle had not left her arms too weak for the task and she soon found herself standing next to Draco and his Muggle friends with a nearly confident smile. The expression lasted only until Aaron announced that he had arranged for them to start their parachuting lessons the next day and it wasn't until a week and two dozen jumps later that she found the smile returning. She wasn't the only one who noticed.

The days of training and drills which had preceded any actual parachuting had left her with the distinct impression that a rogue bludger had been let loose in her chest. Despite her abundance of rather raw nerves, their first trip hadn't been that difficult as it had been purely observational, with her and Draco watching the others plummet towards the ground with little more than a large piece of fabric and a few dozen strings to slow them. She had the feeling that had it not been for her presence, the guys would have forgone the demonstration, and though it was nice that Aaron and the others were trying to ease her into it, she felt all the more resolved to master the challenge before her in a manner and at a speed that would not embarrass her in comparison to Draco's surprising ease with such endeavors.

That inner determination proved helpful, and quite warranted as her stomach had knotted up harder than one of Hagrid's rock cakes as soon as the jump door of the plane had opened on their second trip up. She had tried not to let it show, but she was sure that the others noticed, if only because Carren didn't say anything when she was too busy listening to the wind roar through the plane to hear him when he went over the instructions one last time.

The appreciation she felt for the normally jovial boys not making a joke, good natured as it would have been, out of her fear was the only thing that kept her from hating all four of them as she jumped from the aircraft. As the lessons had continued, however, she had needed less and less of a reason to not dislike the rowdy teens, even when she found herself the topic of their jests. The more she flew and jumped, the less her stomach rebelled at the thought of doing so until it eventually began to fill with butterflies instead of bludgers. Hence her returning smile. And Aaron's answering grin.

"Hah. I knew you were one of us," the brunette stated rather smugly.

She responded with a raised brow, though she couldn't quite keep the smile from widening, drawing a laugh from the Muggle. She chuckled as well, knowing exactly what he meant and having to agree, even if only silently. When she'd first started learning all the crazy, seemingly suicidal things they'd been teaching her and Draco, and realized all the other crazy stuff he'd already done with them, she'd thought them all quite thoroughly insane. Yet, once she'd gotten comfortable with the idea of such things, she'd started to truly enjoy herself and finally see why the four boys liked it so much. What was it they had called themselves? Oh yeah, adrenaline junkies. She was pretty sure that if she kept this up very much longer that she could actually see herself eventually fitting that definition as well.

Eventually.

She was still a little unsure of what else the teens would find to throw at her over the next little while, and was pretty sure that they could come up with something that would completely terrify her if they put any real thought into it. Regardless of how much fun she'd managed to have so far, it had always come after a period of outright fear during which only her pride and stubbornness, and foolish Gryffindor bravery had seen her through. She was almost positive that Draco knew that too. He, and his friends by extension, had been unerringly considerate for the first period of her training when she was most afraid, only to then tease her mercilessly once she had started to work past the fear.

The former behavior was somewhat puzzling coming from the Slytherin, though the latter certainly wasn't. Much of what she had seen and experienced in her interactions with the blond wizard had left her feeling off balance. She'd thought she'd known him back at Hogwarts, at least enough to be able to predict his behavior on a basic level. But so much of his behavior now contradicted what she would have expected even as that same snide arrogance often crept through, making her second guess whether he had really changed as much as it appeared.

She'd never have expected, for example, Malfoy to have done anything physical which didn't involve a broom and the snitch. Yet he had obviously taken up many Muggle activities like the ones they were learning now. He'd met the other boys because of his martial arts classes, something, once it was explained to her, seemed at once fitting and opposing the image of him she'd long carried. He'd always seemed the sort to enjoy learning ways to hurt others weaker than himself, yet she'd once watched him in an Aikido competition and while he'd shown himself aggressive and even arrogant in the sport, his fighting had not seemed to her in any way malicious.

Malicious had appeared to define him at Hogwarts. Then again, so had the term Pure-Blood-Elitist-Hater-Of-All-Things-Muggle. Yet here he was, not just hiding in the Muggle world, but truly living in it. And appearing to enjoy himself while he was at it. He interacted in the surroundings she still found foreign and difficult as if he'd been born to it, which he most certainly had not. Which meant he had probably had to put considerable effort into acquiring the proficiency in Muggle technology and customs he so effortless displayed. Why had he chosen to do that? If she'd had to hazard a guess, she would have thought he'd mope and sulk and cling to his supposed superiority if placed in such a situation where his other option was to join Muggle society. So why hadn't he done exactly that? And why, when it came right down to it, had he even been in the type of situation where he faced such a choice in the first place? Why had he been sent to stay with the Tonkses? How had he become embroiled in the Order?

"You can act like you hate it, but you know you love it just like we do," Aaron elaborated, as if in answer to the silent question she had posed before they'd started laughing.

The words brought Ginny back from her musings, causing her to laugh once more with a shake of her head. She avoided an all out admission, however, not quite sure she wanted Draco to know how much she was enjoying the activities she had so vehemently argued against when he'd first proposed them.

"Ready to go again? We only have the plane another two hours today."

Her smile dropped into a grimace as she sighed and followed him back towards the aircraft with a nod. Even a developing enjoyment couldn't take the full sting out of the practice schedule Malfoy and his friends had devised. As soon as she – and Malfoy, but mostly just her – had been declared adequately proficient in rappelling, ascending, and parachuting, the day before, they had decided to begin loading them both down with all the gear they would need to bring for the actual trip through the cave.

Over and over again over the next few days, they practiced doing everything with increasing loads, until the witch and wizard could jump, land, rappel, run, climb, and ascend with more weight strapped to them than Ginny had once thought she could hold while standing still. There were the ropes, lines, and wenches that would take them up and down the shaft, as well as their main and backup chutes and harnesses, though thankfully they'd be taking those off when they landed. And that didn't even take into account whatever they might need to extricate themselves from the area when they were done, a process they still hadn't figured out, though Draco assured her he and the others were working on it.

The weeks of training and practicing were long and grueling and she was eager for them to end. Even considering that when she wasn't too tired and sore to remember her own name, she'd really begun to enjoy herself, she was anxious to be finished and ready to take on this last task before the Order could focus on the Dark Lord himself. The end seemed like it might finally be in sight soon, but she was well aware of all the problems that still loomed ahead of them.

They still didn't know what they were going to do with Nagini once they got to him, how they would get themselves and the snake away from the cave. Not to mention if they'd be able to successfully do any of what they had, and had yet to plan. Stealing Voldemort's pet was no small or easy task. And she had little idea of what exactly would happen if they were successful in getting the snake. The redhead swallowed hard. Not if, when. They would succeed. She wasn't working this hard in order to fail. They couldn't fail. The Order was depending on her and Malfoy to do this, and they would. Yet even success wouldn't end the questions plaguing her. Once the last Horcrux was obtained it would have to be destroyed, and once it was destroyed, the battle would start, and her part in it all was sure to come out eventually.

How would everyone react to that news? Harry, Hermione and Ron were sure to be upset and she had never actually gotten up the nerve to ask Moody what he'd told her parents about what she was up to. Seeing as no one had tried to drag her back home, she assumed he'd lied to them the same as he had to the trio, saying she had been moved somewhere 'safe'. And even if she weathered their reactions and the battle with the Death Eaters, there was more to consider. She'd probably have to return to the school to make up for all she'd missed while here with Malfoy. And Malfoy… What would he do when it was safe for him to leave the Tonks'?

The youngest Weasley closed her eyes with a silent groan. There were just too many questions buzzing around in her head and it was going to drive her absolutely nutters if she thought about it any longer. As far as their job was concerned, Malfoy had told her to trust him, that he would solve the remaining problems there and she was actually starting to find it possible, if not easy, to do so. He'd found Muggle techniques and tactics to get them to and into the cave; he'd find the ones to get Nagini and extract all three of them when they were done. He'd get her through this last task, and what came after that would wait until after. For now, she thought, she'd simply enjoy what of the training process she could. Ginny glanced over at Malfoy and the others as they worked on storing their chutes and other gear for the night. The wizard looked up then and fixed her with an expectant look.

"You going to put away your stuff, Weasley? I'd like to get to dinner sometime before midnight."

Where once there would have been rancor in his words, there was only a tired impatience and for some reason she found herself rolling her brown eyes with a small smile.

End Chapter Sixteen


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen:

She could have benefited from the type of research he'd done before venturing out into the Muggle world, the blond thought as he watched her fumble a little with her seatbelt as he came to a sudden stop in front of the Tonks' home. Draco let out a small chuckle as she lurched forward with a quiet shriek and reached over obligingly to unfasten it for her. She tossed him a glare as she quickly exited the small sports car he had leased once he'd realized that he couldn't very well cart her and their gear around on the back of his motorbike. He got out more slowly and watched her stomp tiredly into the house.

She'd been in a less than pleasant mood since that morning when he'd presented her with the solution he had come up with for their post-snakenapping get away. At first she'd simply looked at him as if he'd lost his bloody mind. His explanations and assurances had done nothing to persuade her that he wasn't having her on. She'd been sure it was a sick joke and hadn't been pleased with him about it. It wasn't until he'd taken her to meet the former special ops soldier he'd hired to equip and train them that she'd started to believe him. Still, it had taken the other man several minutes to fully convince her the tactic was an authentic military method of extraction, if one only truly utilized by special forces units.

He'd barely held in his laughter at the wide-eyed look on her pale face when their instructor had explained the exact process they'd be learning. It was a very tricky technique, though they wouldn't have to do anything too difficult. The pilot, on the other hand, would need to have an advanced and special skill set to pull it off. Good thing their instructor had the right skills and was more interested in his paycheck than in asking questions. Apparently, while the Malfoy fortune couldn't buy his freedom in the Wizarding world, it could get himself, Weasley and Nagini from the cave to the closest landing strip, which might well amount to the same thing if this managed to help win the war for the Order.

Brushing aside that strangely unsatisfying thought, Draco followed the unhappy young woman into the house. He made it into the kitchen just as she was getting a bottle of water out of the fridge, closing the door a little harder than necessary as she turned to get a glass. The blond felt the corners of this mouth tilt up just a little as he suppressed the laugh that wanted to form at her actions. He simply couldn't help but find her reactions to his plan a bit amusing. Even so, he was faced with a strange sensation as he caught a glimpse of her face and the genuine fear that shadowed it, just behind the almost sulky expression she wore. The Malfoy heir had the sudden urge to tell her that everything was going to be fine, that they'd be perfectly safe and she had nothing to worry about.

He pushed the foreign feelings aside with a mental roll of his eyes.

Weasley would be fine all on her own, he told himself. She'd been scared at the idea of repelling into the cave shaft, and of parachuting from the plane, but the small redhead had gotten over her fear and managed to not only perform both actions, but to become proficient at them. She even seemed to have started to enjoy them too. And all without a single complaint. Sure, the witch had protested rather loudly at the ideas when he'd first presented them, but once they had begun training, she'd cooperated completely, putting all her focus and effort into mastering each task. She hadn't begged not to go, or even asked him to find another way. She hadn't whined about having to practice over and over again, hadn't moaned about being tired or sore when he knew she'd been in worse shape than he had throughout the process. All in all, she'd proven herself to be a lot less bothersome and annoying than he'd expected.

Draco got out his own water with a glance at the petite Gryffindor sitting at the table only a few feet away. Maybe she had proven more than just tolerable to work with. She caught on to things quickly, and seemed to possess a natural aptitude for the type of activities they were learning. And, if he had to be completely honest, once she got past her fears, she was a little fun to work with. Though the way she had a tendency to bite her lip and get really quiet and introspective right before trying a trick for the first time, as if she were giving herself a little mental pep-talk, was kind of fun to watch too. And not just because she was a Gryffindor and obviously scared silly. That part was funny, sure, but the part where she did what she needed to anyway, and usually with a glare at him first; that was the best part. Every time she did it, he could almost hear her voice in his head, telling him he could take his daredevil stunts and choke on them, because she was damn well going to do them, and do them just as good as he did.

She had spine, he had to give her that. Not that that came as a total shock, he had played against her on the Quidditch pitch, after all. The same athleticism that she showcased on a broom was evident when she scaled the faux rock wall, or jumped from an airplane. The same intense and borderline aggressive expression he'd seen her wear when barreling towards the goal hoops had more than once covered her face as she went through their lessons. She was more than a little competitive, in almost everything she did, a trait which seemed to him to only strengthen as they grew nearer to completing their training and therefore beginning their actual task for the Order. She took her role very seriously, he knew, and more than that, appeared to consider the task a type of personal mission. She got the most appealing look on her face when she was bent over the small notebook she kept to record their plans and progress in.

Draco blinked for a moment before opening his water and taking a long drink. She… the look she wore, he corrected, was appealing because it meant she was working diligently on the task at hand, one that although he never really asked for it, could mean the downfall of the evil psycho who was responsible for turning his life upside down and stranding him in the Muggle world. In the world where he had discovered unsuspected talents and interests and genuine friends he enjoyed spending time with. Friends she fit in with without any real effort though they weren't her friends, and without him there to have introduced them, would probably have never met her in either the Muggle or Wizarding worlds. Despite how well they got along with the redhead, they were his friends, and however well she'd managed to fit within it, this was his life. Though having her there hadn't really been all that much of a trial for him. She was decent entertainment, if nothing else.

She was just plain funny to watch when she was trying to puzzle out some unfamiliar Muggle gadget, after all. The way she scrunched up her nose and narrowed her eyes, nearly looking like she was glaring the small piece of electronics into submission; he liked to watch it. Her confusion and frustration were quite amusing to him, often leaving him with the need to suppress a smirk or laugh at her expense. He also enjoyed the way her eyes would go wide and a fierce grin curved her lips when she managed to work out how to operate whatever it was that had presented the latest challenge in her adaptation to Muggle life. Her excitement at her own success were starting to effect him as well, but in a way that was leaving him with a need to suppress something else all together.

The bottle paused for just a second as he lifted it for another drink. The thought almost stuttered in his head before he brushed it off with a mental shake. A sense of vague confusion as to the exact origin and meaning of that particular thought hung in the back of his mind, causing him to glance almost uneasily over at his houseguest. The glance revealed signs of exhaustion overtaking the anger and fear on her pale freckled features, a sight that nearly started to dissolve his lingering discomfort. Her pallor set off her sprinkling of freckles to a previously unnoticed degree, almost reminding him of the sprinkle of cinnamon he sometimes ordered on the white froth of his coffee.

The Slytherin took a large swallow of water. Way off target. Lack of sleep and a constant flow of adrenaline were starting to get to him. With another large swallow that had nothing to do with being thirsty, the blond set down his water and opened the fridge once more, focusing his attention on its contents as he spoke over his shoulder.

"Why don't you go get some sleep so you'll have the energy to be somewhat useful tomorrow?"

The words had contained a shadow of his own exhaustion and whether she heard it, or was simply too tired herself to respond, Ginny followed his advice with only a half-hearted, "Hmph, " before leaving him alone in the Tonks' quiet kitchen.

Draco spent the next few minutes assembling a large sandwich for himself before carrying it with him up to his room, glancing almost absently at the room at the other end of the hall in which his relatives slept soundly. He didn't glance at all at the closed door to the small sitting room slash library next to his bedroom where the pull-out sofa had been designated as Ginny's during her stay. He didn't look at the wall separating their rooms even when the faint sound of whimpers drifted through it as he munched on his sandwich and prepared for bed. At least not until the sound began to reach a volume that he was sure would disturb any rest he might attempt to find. It would be a waste of time to try to sleep with that kind of racket going on. He really had no choice but to go over there and tell her to keep it down. He needed his sleep after all.

Clad in the comfortable flannel pants and t shirt he had purchased for himself about a month before, the young wizard covered the short distance from his door to hers and knocked a few times. When his actions failed to gain her attention enough to wake her, he stood silently for a moment, staring at the door before he reached for the knob and made his way inside. Another few seconds passed as he stood in the doorway and simply squinted into the dark interior at the sofa bed where he could make out the blanket covered lump that was emitting low murmurs and slightly louder whimpers.

Letting out a sigh, the blond walked swiftly across the soft carpet and only hesitated a moment before placing a hand on her nearest arm and giving it a slight shake. Pausing to see if she would finally wake, he sighed again and repeated the action, this time calling her name as well. He kept his voice soft, so as not to wake the Tonkses as well, not even wanting to think about the questions that would raise. Coral had been sending him enough strange looks when she returned from work to find he and Ginny ensconced on the front sofa, discussing how best to fine tune the plan.

Despite his best efforts, however, the witch remained soundly asleep and the distressed noises she was making only grew louder. Shaking her a little harder this time, Draco called her name softly a second time, making a face of his own as he watched her features contort into a pained expression. Annoying, that's what this was, he decided as he quickly redoubled his efforts before she was able to make anymore such expressions or let out any more pitiful sounds.

"Weasley. Hey. Ginny!"

The last was barked out mere inches from her face, forcing him to jerk his head back as her eyes suddenly snapped open on a gasp. She blinked up at him for several seconds, as if waiting for her eyes to focus and he took the opportunity to straighten completely and shuffle back a few steps, his arm falling to his side.

"Draco?"

He nodded at her confused and ever so shaky question, then cleared his throat, not sure how well she would be able to see the gesture in the dark. "Yeah."

He went to take another step away from her bed, felt the backs of his knees collide with a chair and instead sat down across from her, simply for convenience sake, since he was tired and had spent much of the day on his feet. She didn't seem to notice his actions, instead looking around her as if she wasn't quite sure where she was. "What…?"

He shrugged his shoulder at the exclamation. "You were having a nightmare, I think," he leaned forward, elbows on knees in a casual and completely unconcerned slouch.

Ginny seemed to stare at him for a few tense seconds, then swallowed with a nod of agreement or possibly acknowledgement. He shifted silently then, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest while nonchalantly looking over the contents of the desk he was currently sitting at. "Was it from…?"

He let the question hang, unfinished, but she hardly needed to hear the rest to know what he was asking, and responded with a stiff nod before looking away herself. "Not about the Horcruxes though," her voice lowered even more than the soft tone she was already using. "It would be better if that was all he left, but there's other stuff too. Memories, things he thought, or said, or did. It's…"

This time it was she who trailed off and him who nodded, not needing an explanation to go with the drawn, haunted look on her pale face. "I met him once."

It was all he needed to say as their eyes met briefly and they both lapsed into silence once more. The silence lasted several heavy moments before being broken by the blond quickly leaning forward, one pale hand darting out to give hers an awkward, halting pat where it lay on the dark blankets. She barely had time to blink at the unexpected action before he was on his feet and headed towards the door. His long strides froze for just a second as he reached the hallway, his words stilted as he turned back briefly.

"'Night Weasley." His eyes landed on her long enough to catch the weak smile she sent in response, her voice carrying to him through the quiet room.

"Thanks."

He paused again, and in the shadowed light, it almost looked to Ginny as if Draco Malfoy smiled at her before he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind himself. His face was blank of all but a hint of puzzlement by the time he reached his own room, however. 'Thank you' was a standard phrase, an automatic response a person might hear a dozen times a day, but when she'd said it, abbreviated or not, it had sounded like she really meant it. It made him crinkle his pale brow as he settled into his bed.

As a Slytherin he'd had limited experience with sincerity, and it was somewhat disconcerting to receive it from someone who knew him as a Slytherin, especially when that person was one he knew as a Gryffindor. After the first few days of her stay, however, they hadn't really treated one another as a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, though. More like reluctant allies, which had seemed to become not-so-reluctant partners in the last few weeks. Even so, he wasn't sure how to take her thanks. With his housemates, he never would have received an acknowledgement of help because that would have been an acknowledgement that the person had needed help in the first place, which a Slytherin never did.

He'd been thanked by the new friends he'd made here, and by the relatives he was staying with more than once since he'd moved in, but that was different somehow. He wasn't sure how or why, but a thank you from Ginny Weasley was different. More than just a thank you was different if he really thought about it. But he didn't. And he certainly didn't think about the fact that such differences somehow bothered him and that he was somehow completely okay with that. He needed his sleep, after all, and now that the redhead next door was finally quiet he could get that sleep. Which, once he turned out his bedside lamp, he did. Without a single glance towards the wall that separated his room from hers, of course.

End Chapter Seventeen


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